


The Lost One

by theoneandonlyzoom



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Kidnapping, Ravager culture and customs, Swearing, Violence, Young Peter, underage drinking (but not a lot)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2018-12-02 06:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 47,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11503887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoneandonlyzoom/pseuds/theoneandonlyzoom
Summary: Peter Quill's only eleven years old and already he's been abducted by two different Ravager factions in his short time in space. At first he thinks the universe must be playing a cruel joke on him, but nobody seems to be laughing. Not even Stakar Ogord, the jerk who's recently kidnapped him.[[A minor AU story that takes place long before the main plotline of the first film.]]





	1. First impressions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Seeing Stallone as Stakar Ogord in movie blew my mind away. I just really wanted to see more of him interacting with Yondu and Peter, both young and old, which is how this story came to be. Inevitably, Peter will still grow up to save the galaxy from Ronan and Ego, so this AU won't be as massive as you might think. More of a nice little detour really (although Peter might beg to differ...).
> 
> As an aside, I sincerely apologize for any grammar or general sentence structure mistakes in this chapter. I didn't have my laptop in Mexico, so I was forced to write out the first chapter entirely on my phone (something I will never do again). If you notice any error, I won't be insulted it you point them out to me.

It’s around the fifth hour that Peter starts to wonder if something’s gone wrong.

He’s a scrawny eleven-year-old covered from head to toe in cobwebs and dust, and he’s just raided the second set of ruins in his entire juvenile life. Peter doesn’t know what ancient civilization the tombs belonged to, but they’d been loaded up with gigantic reptilian statues almost twice his height and decorated with precious stones. He’d been instructed to climb up and collect a few, but the brunt of his work today had centered around helping the other men haul a series of large urns filled to the brim with a rare oil out from the ground before packing them into massive crates.

Tasked with shimmying down into the holes the urns were stored in and winding rope through the handles, Peter predictably spent the majority of his day crammed somewhere deep, dark, and narrow. Not that he minded much. Both his natural ability and willingness to squeeze into cramped spaces made him a little less expendable than his crewmates, his only other unique talent being that he’s one of the few people aboard the Eclector who know how to do long division and read.

Sitting on the ground outside the wide cave that leads down to the tomb, Peter flips his respirator over in his hands and stares out at the darkening sky. He doesn’t see the Eclector anywhere and Tullk hasn’t been able to get a hold of anyone over the radio. One of their M-ships is parked nearby, already loaded up with as much loot as it can bear, but there’s no point in them leaving before they know where they’re going. All they can really do now is sit and wait.

Peter wasn’t allowed to bring his Walkman down for the trip, so he’s bored out of his mind. He knows other members of their crew are busy raiding distant tombs across the alien desert, so the big delay is likely due to a problem at one of the other sites. But then he figures there’s a little more to said problem when he sees a tiny speck growing just above the horizon, swelling to the size of an M-ship before a not-too-dissimilar aircraft lands beside their own ship.

Tullk, who’d been pacing anxiously beside the excess crates, stops dead in his tracks once he catches sight of it. He shoots Peter a pointed look and says, “Get inside,” before jogging over to deal with the newcomers.

Peter is surprised Tullk doesn’t immediately reach for his blaster when he approaches the ship, but then the ramp lowers and two men waltz out, and its obvious by the way Tullk vehemently cusses them out that the three of them are old acquaintances.

Following Tullk’s command, Peter pockets his respirator and retreats into the cave to covertly gawk at the intruders from the shadows with the others. “Who are they?” he asks.

“Another Ravager clan,” Fren sighs. “Whoever posted the job for the oil must’ve accepted multiple hires.”

Peter scrunches up his nose in distaste. He’d learned early on that stealing on somebody else’s behalf was always a risky business, especially when your employer refused to pay up front. If they found someone else who’d do the job for less a little later on, then it became a race against time to see who got to the goods first.

Well, they’d obviously won here, and Peter was willing to bet Yondu was going sell the oil off to a third party just to spite their employer. Yondu didn’t take kindly to people double-crossing him like this.

To be honest, Peter gets a little thrill at the thought of Yondu storming into the man’s office and whistling out his arrow. He still had mixed feelings about the captain himself, but Yondu’s arrow sure was one nifty weapon. Better than any old blaster, by far.

Lost in thought, Peter knocks one of the smaller boxes over with his elbow, a few precious stones he stole earlier tumbling out. He has to crouch behind one of the larger crates and squint in the darkness to collect them all again.

Eventually, someone reaches over from the other side of the crate to set the smaller box upright. Peter plops the stones into it when he straightens up again.

Then he stares blankly at the unfamiliar man standing before him.

The stranger’s a gruff looking fellow in a dark blue suit with gold stripes branded over his chest and shoulders. He’s got black hair peppered with grey at the temples and lines at the corners of his eyes like Peter’s grampa, but he looks more militant than good old grampa. And meaner too.

Peter learned a long time ago that people didn’t like to be compared to ‘humans’, so he just stares at the man and says nothing. The unfamiliar man stares right on back, but there’s a steely kind of look in his eyes that makes Peter feel a little uneasy. It’s the same look Yondu gets whenever he discovers someone’s two-timing him.

Peter’s never been at the wrong end of that kind of look before so he doesn’t know what to do. He’s kind of hoping Tullk or one of the other guys will soon interject on his behalf, but then he realizes they’ve all got their hands full when he spots the twelve or so other blue-suited men filing into the cave. They appear to be conversing amiably amongst themselves, but any illusion of familiarity is cut to the quick when the guy in front of Peter opens his mouth.

“What…” the stranger says slowly. Everyone in the cave falls silent at the sound of his low, gravelly voice, as though waiting for something unimaginably bad to happen.  “…the _hell_ is this?”

 _‘A boy,’_ Peter thinks, but he wisely keeps his thoughts to himself, figuring it’s about time he put a little distance between himself and this weirdo.

Which is easier said than done, because the second he walks around the crate a large hand shoots out to catch him by the forearm.

“Let _go_!” Peter snaps as he tries to tug his arm back viciously. Remarkably, the man maintains his grip.

“Stakar…” Tullk says, the unusual edge in his voice equal parts warning and supplication. “It’s not how it looks.”

“Has Yondu lost his _mind_?” Stakar hisses. He seems to be impervious to the fact that Peter is trying to pry his hand off with his tiny fingers. “Where did he get this one from?”

Oddly enough, nobody says anything.

Frustrated, Stakar glances down at Peter. “Where did you come from, boy?”

Peter clues into the fact that there’s a big secret here about Earth that nobody wants to talk about, so he juts his chin up at the man defiantly and says, “The Eclector.”

Stakar shakes him for a second, but then immediately stops. And odd kind of expression passes over his face, a mixture of grief and anger and confusion.

Peter goes back to prying the guy’s fingers off and Stakar goes back to ignoring him. The stranger turns toward a curious man with shards of glass for a head and says, “We’re leaving.”

Glass-head nods and motions his men out of the cave. Nobody from Yondu’s clan moves until Stakar storms after his crew, Peter in tow.

Peter digs his heels into the dirt, but Stakar is stronger than he appears. Fren finally steps forward to intercept them, but Glass-head and a few of the other blue jackets whip around as if on cue, blasters raised and ready to mince them.

Tullk goes red in the face so suddenly, Peter’s worried he’s going to burst a blood vessel. “Put him _down_ , Stakar.”

“Like hell,” Stakar growls, slowing as he passes the older man. “You tell Yondu that if I ever see him again, I’ll kill him. You got that?”

“You’re making a mistake, you ol’ fool. If you’d just _listen_ —”

Stakar dismisses the other man with a sharp wave of his hand. Then he tugs Peter closer suddenly, letting go of his arm in favor of crouching down to hoist the boy over his shoulder.

Peter starts to kick up a fuss but it doesn’t stop the man. Stakar strolls out of the cave with long hard strides that jostle Peter in his precarious perch.

 Tullk hurtles obscenities Stakar’s retreating form, but with so many guns trained on him, it’s a losing battle. There’s nothing anyone in Peter’s clan can really do to stop them.

Peter was afraid before, but it isn’t until Stakar heads up the ramp to his own ship that Peter realizes he’s in truly dire straits here. Frightened, he elbows Stakar hard between the shoulder blades.

Stakar grunts a little from the hit, but seems otherwise unfazed by Peter’s antics. He’s still clearly ticked off with this whole situation though, judging by the way he all but tosses Peter to another man, looks the boy dead in the eye, and says, “ _Smarten up_.”

Peter spits at him.

His mouth is kind of dry, so he doesn’t get much phlegm into it, and it falls short of Stakar’s face anyway. The man gives him an odd look and then nods to the man holding Peter up. “Strap yourself in with him.”

“Yes, Captain,” the man replies, taking a step back and sitting down. He plants Peter on his lap and then struggles to get the belts around them both as Peter wrestles to get up again.

It’s a losing battle. The man fixes up the straps and Peter finally goes limp in his arms, stunned by how quickly this day had taken a turn for the worse.

A glance around the ship tells Peter that this is strictly a transport vessel, lined on either side by seats. Everyone scrambles to get themselves strapped in as Stakar climbs the ladder to the flight deck and orders the pilot to take off.

Glass-head strolls up the ramp just as it begins to close, diving into the empty seat beside Peter and his assigned guard. He shrugs his harness on as the ship rises into the sky. “You got a name, kid?”

Peter turns his face away.

The other men in the hold keep glancing his way, but nobody says anything as they sail up through the atmosphere. Peter can feel his heart pounding in his chest the farther the ship takes him from his own clan.

“I’m Martinex,” the man offers quietly. His voice is deep and raspy and hollow. Peter wonders how he moves his jaw without shattering his entire face.

“Why did you take me?” Peter asks. “Are you mad at Yondu?”

 _‘Are you going to kill me?’_ is what he really wants to ask.

He doesn’t know if Yondu would care much if they did kill him, beyond the fact that he would be losing an asset.

“Yes,” Martinex replies. “How long has he had you?”

Kraglin once told Peter that he should never tell anyone any more than what he absolutely needed them to know, so Peter ignores the question completely and says, “You don’t want me—I’m useless. Take me back.”

“We’ll be the judge of that. Now, are you going to give me a name or do we have to invent something for you?”

Peter doesn’t want to give them his name, but he doesn’t feel comfortable with someone else naming him either. Yondu once tried to talk him out of using ‘Peter Quill’ because it was too ‘ _Terran’_ , but Peter’s never let him call him anything other than that or Starlord. Of course, people still referred to him ‘boy’ or ‘brat’ or ‘kid’, but that was beyond his control at this age.

Trying to think of the most boring name he can possibly come up with, Peter suddenly remembers those old black and white mysteries he used to watch with his mother before she got sick, the ones with the ‘John Doe’ the detectives sometimes found sprawled out in alleyways or floating face down in a river.

“John,” he says, wondering if maybe he isn’t a dead man too.

“John?” Martinex is silent for a moment. “How old are you, John?”

“Old enough.”

Martinex leans his head back against the padding of his seat and sighs. “You’re a funny guy, John.”

Peter cranes his own head back to look up at the fellow holding him. He appears humanoid, for the most part, with a slight orange tint to his skin. “Who’re you?” he asks.

“…Arden.”

“Do you guys eat kids?”

A few of the men chuckle at his inquiry. Arden gives him a weird look. “Uh…not really. Why do you ask?”

Peter shrugs. “Just checking.” He squirms on the man’s lap for a second. “You’ve got bony legs.”

“You just don’t have any fat on you,” Arden replies. “They feed you on Yondu’s ship?”

“Yep.” Not that the food was particularly good, but Peter was fed about as regularly as all of the other men. It just helped to keep a slim physique in his line of work.

“They ever beat you?” is Arden’s next tentative question.

Peter’s been smacked around a bit for misbehaving, but not half as much as he would’ve imagined on a ship run by criminals. Regardless, he knows where this line of questioning is going, so he scowls up at Arden and says, “I’m _crew_ ,” before looking away again.

“Of course,” Arden says, and then they both fall quiet, sitting together in an uncomfortable silence until the ship rattles as it encounters gravity again. Peter takes that to mean they’ve finally landed on the mothership, wherever the hell that might be.

Arden unstraps them from the seat and grabs Peter by the wrist as soon as the boy hops off his lap, keeping the boy in place as the other men wander down the ramp. Martinex hangs back with them.

Peter’s heart starts racing again. He ain’t cold, but he’s sweating now, beads of perspiration sticking to the back of his neck and slicking up the inside of his collar. He wishes he knew what they were going to do to him.

Soon enough, Stakar climbs down from the flight deck to join his men. Slowly, he saunters over to Peter, giving the boy a quick once-over as he pulls off his gloves. “You gonna spit at me again, kid?”

Frustrated as he is, Peter’s not in the mood to get slapped today. He shakes his head.

“Good.” Satisfied with his answer, Stakar crouches down in front of him. “What’s your name?”

“John,” he says.

Stakar pauses for a moment. Peter wonders if the man knows he’s lying, but then he asks, “Where are you from, John?”

“The Eclector,” Peter replies.

“We’ve already established that,” Stakar sighs. “I’m talking about your planet, boy. Where were you _born_?”

Peter knows there’s a reason Tullk and the others made a point not to say Earth, so he decides he won’t either, not that he understands the importance of this particular secret. The trouble is, Peter hasn’t been on many civilized planets since he was abducted and he can hardly remember the names of the ones he’s visited so far.

Stakar watches Peter very carefully as he thinks. Before the boy can open his mouth, he says, “If you’re not going to tell me the truth, don’t bother answering the question. I just find it funny you don’t want to be reunited with your loved ones.”

Peter’s eyes drop to the ground. He knows grampa is still on Earth, and all his aunts and uncles and cousins too, but he can’t think of home without picturing his poor mother, pale and afraid, reaching out to him for comfort…

He doesn’t deserve to go back to Earth.

“You an orphan?” Stakar asks, cluing in to Peter’s weighty silence.

Peter nods. He knows he has a dad somewhere out in the universe, but the man might as well not exist for all the good he’s done the Quills.

Stakar glances up at Martinex. Some unspoken message passes between them before Stakar rises to his feet. To Peter, he says, “You and I are going to have a long conversation tonight. For now, I’m going to send you off to get fed and cleaned up. No spitting; no biting. If you behave yourself, we won’t have any problems.”

Peter thinks he can play nice for now, but then Stakar walks down the ramp and casually calls back to Martinex, “Get rid of that godforsaken jacket,” and it’s then that Peter realizes cooperating with these people really isn’t going to do him any good at all.

Arden’s already trying to pull his red Ravager jacket down his shoulders, so Peter takes a wide step forward and whips around. “ _No_!” he snaps.

“It barely fits you,” Arden points out. It’s a little long in the sleeves, true, but Peter has every intention of growing into it someday. “We’ll find you a nice sweater, I promise.”

Peter inches backward as the man advances. “It’s mine! Just… _leave me alone_.”

“John…” Martinex warns.

Peter’s chest tightens suddenly, breaths coming out in short, sharp jerks. He doesn’t have his Walkman on hand and now they’re trying to take the only other thing that really belongs to him. _He_ needs it and they _don’t_ , so what do they have to gain by destroying it?

“We’re just going to clean it up and then we’ll give it back to you,” Arden lies.

Peter scowls at him and bolts.

He only just makes it past Martinex’s outstretched hand, running down the ramp so fast he almost wipes out at the bottom. Stakar is talking to one of his other men nearby and turns suddenly to stare at Peter. He looks stunned for a moment. Then he makes a grab for the boy too.

But now that Peter’s got a little adrenaline in his veins, he’s able to do what he does best, which is to piss off as many adults on a Ravager ship as he possibly can by darting around their legs, racing blindly through the main hanger. It’s about as large as the one on the Eclector, housing upward of 50 smaller ships, and it’s packed full of men either doing repairs or hauling around cargo. Many stop to stare at him as he passes, only jumping into action after they hear Stakar’s barked orders to catch him.

Peter has a small advantage in the sense that nobody is really expecting him to be there, which is why only a few people pay him any heed as he finally darts through a door and down an empty hall. He takes one turn, then another, eager to put as much distance between himself and Stakar before he allows himself to recuperate.

He can hear someone gasping behind him, followed shortly by that same someone hooking their fingers in the collar of his coat. Peter’s yanked back so hard, his feet fly up from under him, both he and his captor landing on the floor with a heavy _oomph_! A dazed glance back reveals that Arden was the one catch him.

“John—!” the man gasps, clearly short of breath.

Painful as it is to part with it, Peter shucks off his jacket and climbs back to his feet, sprinting as hard as his little legs can carry him.

Eventually, he hits an empty hallway lined with doors. Trying the first one on the left, he stumbles into a dimly lit room—and trips over a bundle of thick cables. The door slams shut behind him as he tumbles to the floor, not daring to breathe as he waits for someone to run in after him.

When he’s met with silence, Peter cautiously rises to his feet. He’s hurt from hitting the floor twice in so many minutes, but he’s too afraid to focus on the pain. He glances wildly around the room for something he can use to barricade the door—and then he sees it:

A small air grate.

Hands shaking, Peter reaches down to slip the small knife out of his boot and crouches in front of the grate. It takes him a moment to calm down enough to hold the knife steady, but eventually he’s able to unscrew the grate from the wall and lay it quietly down on the floor beside him.

In the hall, he can hear raised voices.

He bites down on the blunt edge of his knife and leans into the tiny vent. It’s about the same size as the ones on Yondu’s ship, meaning his hips and shoulders are the perfect width for squeezing seamlessly inside. He shimmies forward more urgently when he hears the door to the supply closet bang open against the wall. Then a hand closes around his right ankle and he just about screams in terror.

Peter kicks at it and continues pulling himself forward, hell bent on escape. The man in the closet swears and retracts his hand before Peter hears him trying to squeeze into the vent after him.

He’s betting the man’s too big and he’s right. As Peter clambers farther into the darkness, he can hear Arden shout, “ _Get the hell back here_!” before other angry voices join him. Peter can then hear yet somebody else trying to squeeze into the vent, but Peter’s already reached the first fork in the road and hangs left, forcing himself onward. Gradually, the ruckus fades behind him.

Peter doesn’t know where he’s going, so he keeps crawling until he encounters a fan in a much larger quadrant of the vents. Then he sits up and pulls his knees toward his chest, gingerly taking the knife from his mouth to return it to the sheath inside his boot. Trembling, he wipes the sweat from his face and his neck.

Eventually, the adrenaline drains from his system, leaving him feeling heavy and weak. He wishes he had his Walkman. He has no other way of centring himself.

Inevitably, tears well up in his eyes and he doesn’t bother trying to keep them in. He hasn’t cried like this in a long time because Yondu told him that showing any kind of sentiment was a dangerous thing to do when dealing with Ravagers. But Peter knows he couldn’t possibly get himself into any more trouble than he’s already in. Eventually, someone will fit into the air vent or he’ll be forced out to search for food or water, and _then_ these strangers will do away with him like he knows they always intended to.

Alone and afraid, Peter sobs openly into the darkness.

He knows his days are numbered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Once Peter has a chance to calm down, his narrative will become more reliable. I will be jumping between his and Stakar's perspective for the most part in this story (as well as other characters', such as Yondu's), to keep the flavor fresh.


	2. Man to man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Just a small warning for a _tinsy_ amount of underage drinking in this chapter, but I promise this won't be the norm. Otherwise, enjoy the update!

His crew just completed another shift change and they still haven’t found the boy.

Normally, he’d be up in his quarters right now, catching a little shut-eye before they head off to Darbia, but instead he’s wide awake in the Operations room, listening to suggestions on how to smoke a small child out of the goddamn ventilation shafts. It doesn’t help that there’s a very real chance the kid might’ve gotten stuck somewhere, although Arden informed him the boy scuttled into the vents with a kind of fluidity that hinted he was both comfortable and capable of navigating cramped spaces. Stakar now only has to wonder if this is one of the boy’s natural quirks or if John’s behavior was forced upon him by Yondu.

God… _Yondu_. Every time Stakar thinks he’s heard the last of him, the strings of fate entwine them once again.

You’d think with the universe being as infinite as it is, his former friend and ally would be an easier target to avoid.

But in hindsight, as much as it pains him to revisit the circumstances of Yondu’s exile, there’s a reason the Power That Be brought Stakar to this far-flung corner of the galaxy, that reason being the liberation of this bizarre child. It just seems a little unfair that he has so many questions as to _why_ Yondu’s taken this boy in and yet the only person capable of explaining this mystery to him is currently holed up in the ship’s inner workings. Willingly, no less.

Stakar leans back in his seat and stares at the man currently going over the ship’s blueprints beside him. Next to it is a list of quadrants they’ve already checked, having found two women and one young man slim enough to fit inside the vents themselves. They’ve only managed to clear one level so far and just started on the second.

“Captain?”

Slowly, Stakar lifts his gaze to the door. Martinex doesn’t wait for a response before he says, “We know where he is.”

“Finally,” he sighs. “Whereabouts then?”

“Close to Med bay.”

He supposes that makes sense, given that nobody’s been injured recently. It would be relatively empty right about now.

Mildly pleased with the turn in events, Stakar pushes himself up to his feet, joints stiff from sitting in the same spot for so goddamn long, and follows Martinex down the hall. Walking abreast the man, he asks, “How did you find him?”

There’s an awkward pause before Martinex says, “He’s humming.”

“Humming?” Tucked up somewhere dark and entertaining himself with tunes—the kid must be crazy. “Does he realize we’ve cornered him?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

Mentally, Stakar crosses his fingers and contemplates the necessity of getting Doc to do a psych evaluation on the boy as they make their way briskly to Med Bay.

Sure enough, its pretty dead inside. There’s one medical assistant cataloging drugs in the corner while another lingers by the far wall with a small group of engineers. Between them crouches a small, dark-haired woman, slowly unscrewing a ventilation grate. He can tell that the lot of them are trying their damndest to be as silent as the grave.

Suddenly aware of how loud his boots sound against the floor, Stakar paces quietly forward until he’s standing on the fringe of their little group. It’s then that he hears it, the faint sound of someone humming. On key, no less, although that won’t win the kid any favors.

Once the grate’s removed, the medic hands the woman a small syringe. Ever so carefully, she gets down on her belly and slips into the vent, the leather of her jumpsuit creaking gently as she moves.

The boy continues humming.

Stakar plants his hands on his hips and waits.

It feels like a small eternity that they listen to the boy’s haunting song before he goes abruptly silent. Then there’s a poignant pause before a loud and resounding _bang_ echoes down the vent. The medic jumps, eyes widening at the series of thumps and shouts that follow shortly, finished off with a high-pitched cry that just as easily could’ve come from a small child as a woman.

After a long and uncomfortable silence, Martinex crouches down in front of the vent and says, “Baozhai?”

“I’ve got him,” she hisses from the darkness. Then sharply, she asks, “Did any of you bastards know he had a knife?”

Stakar feels a muscle in his jaw twitch.

It takes a while for her to shimmy back the way she came, dragging the boy along with her. As soon as her ankles are in sight. Martinex and one of the other men grab her around the calves and haul her smoothly out. There’s a deep gash on the back of her left wrist, so she steps aside to let the medic tend to her injury as they reach back inside to pull the boy out next.

Stretched on his back, Stakar can see the syringe sticking out of John’s side. He looks unnaturally pale under the harsh light of the surgery, eyes half-lidded as he lies there in a drug-induced haze. He looks like a dead thing, freshly severed from life.

Stakar’s stomach turns uneasily. For a moment, he wonders if the kid isn’t, in fact, dead, but then his tiny hand twitches and he blinks slowly, head lulling to one side. Martinex plucks the syringe from his abdomen, which elicits a small wince.

He’s still very much alive.

“Should’ve used a bigger dose,” one of the men remarks.

The medic looks up from where he’s wrapping Baozhai’s wrist with gauze, clearly irritated by the offhanded comment. “I don’t know what species he is. I didn’t want to risk it.”

“It’s for the best,” Stakar interjects. “I want to speak with him as soon as he’s no longer out of it.” He looks between the two men standing on either side of the boy and says, “Clean him up completely. Then bring him over to me.”

They both pound their fists against their chests in salute.

Martinex looks up at him from where he’s still crouched beside the child but says nothing.

Now that everything’s in order again, Stakar retreats to his quarters, feeling somehow old and weary from all the excitement over one little boy. He doesn’t understand the heavy sensation in the pit of the stomach or why he suddenly has the overwhelming urge to call Aleta when he reaches his room.

Maybe it’s because the sight of that unnaturally pale face reminded him too much of another unfortunate soul named John.

As soon as the door slides shut behind him, Stakar pulls off his gloves and tosses them onto the desk in the corner. Then he pulls up a holo-screen and begins pacing the length of his room. He wants to speak with Aleta, but he doesn’t know what to say to her. Ironically, has a few choice words for Yondu, but he’d rather choke on his own tongue then call the man up himself.

Even so, he wonders why Yondu hasn’t tried to get a hold of him yet. If the boy meant anything to him, he surely would’ve sent a message by now. But then, Yondu’s business with children was always just that: strictly business.

Considering how adamant his old protégé had been in his ignorance of any wrong-doing three years ago, Stakar’s honestly amazed he’s still got the gonads to continue abducting children after all this time.

Irritated, Stakar finally types in Yondu’s number and tries to connect with the Eclector. To his surprise, no connection can be made, either because Yondu’s shut off all communication between his ship and the outside world or because he’s somewhere out of reach of the transmission.

Well…good riddance to him. It’s not as though Stakar was planning on giving the child back anyway.

The chance to tear Yondu a new one now squashed, Stakar feels himself deflate a little. He contemplates the pros and cons of trying to call Aleta next when he knows she’s probably fast asleep, but is saved from having to make that tremendously difficult decision when there’s a knock at his door.

Stakar waves the holo-screen shut and says, “It’s unlocked.”

The door slides open with a faint whoosh to reveal John. One of Stakar’s men gently pushes the boy forward and then closes the door behind him, leaving the two of them to speak in private.

John looks miserable.

His hair is damp and his old clothes have been swapped out for the white shirt, trousers, and socks the medics usually give to invalids. It’s obvious Stakar’s men took his order to clean the boy up to heart, and John is not the least bit pleased with the outcome, running a hand viciously through his wet locks in an attempt to pull his bangs out of his eyes.

Angry as he obviously is, the kid still looks a little pale and weak, so Stakar pulls out the chair at his desk and pats the back of it. “Have a seat.”

John glances at the chair and quite decisively stays right where he is.

Stakar scratches his chin. “…I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re not actually a child,” he says finally. “You’re just a little jerk trapped in a pint-sized body, sent by the Powers That Be to make me atone for my sins.”

The kid doesn’t laugh. Or blink. Just keeps glaring at Stakar like he’s running purely off of piss and vinegar and an unquenchable thirst for vengeance.

Kind of reminds Stakar of Aleta on one of her bad days.

Which is a painful thought all on its own, so Stakar sighs and makes his way over to the wall beside his desk. He opens a hidden panel there and pulls out two glasses with one hand and a crystal tumbler half full of a dark amber liquid with the other. The drink in question is lovingly referred to by many as ‘Kissing the Sun’.

He pours an ungodly amount into one glass and less than quarter of a finger into the other. The latter he hands to the kid.

At long last, the boy drops his scowl, staring down into his drink with a mix of open disgust and confusion.

“You need to calm down,” Stakar explains, taking a pull from his own drink. It burns delightfully at the back of his throat. “But just this once. Then we’ll have ourselves an honest conversation. Man to man.”

John glances back up at him and finally takes a sip. He starts coughing immediately, squinting at the awful sensation on his tongue.

“Too much?” Stakar asks.

As soon as John can breathe again, his scowls returns.

Then he downs the rest of his glass.

Of course, he has a nasty coughing fit after that too, but the kid succeeds in startling a rare laugh out of Stakar.

Grinning, Stakar takes the empty glass from the kid before John has a chance to drop it and deposits it on the desk. Then he settles down in his chair and crosses one leg casually over the other, watching as the kid takes a seat on the edge of Stakar’s bed before he’s hit with the first dizzy spill from the drink.

Stakar’s not really of the opinion that children should drink, but the boy’s strange behavior certainly proves one of his suspicions:

It’s likely John either openly or covertly sampled alcohol on Yondu’s ship, the thought of which puts a sour taste in his mouth.

He takes another pull of his drink and waits for the burn to subside before he says, “Now that we’ve lubricated your vocal cords, I think you’re more than ready to talk. Wouldn’t you agree?”

John gives him a pained look but nods in agreement.

“Well then, tell me what it is Yondu sees in you. Why’d he give you that jacket, boy?”

“I don’t want to talk about Yondu,” John says softly, eyes downcast.

“Why not?”

“ ’cause he’s not here to defend himself.”

Stunned, Stakar doesn’t immediately know what to say to that. Eventually, he asks, “Where’d you learn that bit of wisdom?”

“My mom.”

“Sounds like a smart lady,” Stakar says. But then he remembers that the kid is an orphan and he struggles once again to figure out what he should say next. “Do you always carry a knife with you? You cut a member of my crew.”

“I’m sorry,” the boy says quietly. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s gonna be fine.” And honestly, he knows the kid wasn’t acting out of malice. He was just cornered and afraid, and lashed out the only way he knew how.

The problem with that, though, is Stakar’s Plan A for the kid has now been viciously nipped in the bud. He was hoping he could just drop the boy off at an orphanage in Xandar the next time they were passing through, but he thinks John’s a little too feral to live a child’s life anymore. He’ll just become a menace to all the other kids and the caretakers at the institution, a tiny terror who knows how to wield a weapon and slip past security.

Stakar polishes off his drink and rises to pour himself another. In the corner of his eye, he can see John swinging his little legs back and forth over the edge of the bed. He looks bored and troubled all at once.

Tired, Stakar settles back down in his seat. Once he’s gotten a little rest, he’ll call some of the other captains over to one of their favorite haunts and ask them what they think he should do with the kid. In any case, he needs to inform them Yondu’s apparently still up to no good.

Stakar takes a swig of his drink. “Since you’re not in the mood to talk about Yondu, why don’t you tell me something you enjoy about being aboard the Eclector?”

The boy squints thoughtfully. “I like to lie in bed and listen to my music when it’s time to sleep.”

“You have your own music?”

“It’s all on my mom’s music player.” The boy suddenly gets a distant look in his eyes. “It’s back on the Eclector…”

“I see…What else?”

John shrugs. “I don’t know. I like it when Krags teaches me things.”

‘ _Krags’_ sounded awfully familiar... “You mean Kraglin Obfonteri? Yondu’s first mate?”

The kid yawns, nodding his head. “He says the more you know, the more you’re worth.”

“That’s certainly true.” People often underestimated how smart Obfonteri really was. They didn’t seem to realize he’d only made it as far as he did through the ranks because he was a genuinely clever and sensible man.

Well…at least until it came to telling Yondu he was making a colossal mistake. Obfonteri was supposed to be his captain’s sober second thought for issues that danced the fine line of the breaking the Ravager Code, a task he failed at spectacularly once they started trafficking kids.

“You sound very intelligible for a child,” Stakar continues. “How old are you?”

The boy pulls his legs up to his chest. He curls his arms around his shins and braces his chin against his knees, suddenly shrinking to half his size. “I think I’m eleven.”

“Are you sure?” There’s no way the kid’s eleven. Stakar seems to recall that eleven-year-olds should be taller than this. They normally shoot up like weeds around this age, although he supposes that all depends on how many days make up a ‘year’ on this boy’s home world.

John shrugs, eyes drooping shut. “I guess…Why does it matter?”

 _‘Because you’re growing up too fast,’_ Stakar thinks wearily. Childhood can be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair if you’re not careful, and John’s in very real danger of missing out on his entirely.

But then, Stakar’s own childhood sucked, and so did the childhood of just about everyone else aboard his ship. ‘Innocence lost’ is an all too familiar tragedy among Ravagers, and the boy’s obviously doomed to suffer the same fate.

“What did you do when you were eleven?” the boy asks curiously, eyes still closed. Give it ten or fifteen minutes, and Stakar’s betting anything the kid will be sound asleep.

Stakar shrugs. “I was adopted. Had the misfortune of growing up under the care of a tyrant.”

“I’m sorry,” the boy mumbles.

“Don’t be,” he sighs. “It’s how I met my ex-wife…I think you’d like Aleta. You remind me of her.”

John opens his eyes half-way in curiosity and then closes them again. This time, Stakar leaves him to his peace, watching as the boy slowly but surely manages to fall asleep sitting upright.

He still has so many questions, but he realizes now that he needs to take his time in asking them. The boy has some serious trust issues. It’ll take a while to crack his cold exterior.

Eventually, the boy half-falls, half-rolls onto his side, passing out in a boneless sprawl on top of Stakar’s furs. Stakar pours himself another drink and continues watching him in the dim light as he tries to block out the bad memories, the ones that return to him at the worst of times and keep him up all hours of the night.

He doesn’t know how long they linger together in that sacred silence before there’s a knock at the door. “Come in,” Stakar grumbles.

Martinex steps inside and salutes. He glances first at the slumbering boy and then over at Stakar, sniffing the air. After a beat, he asks, “Are you drunk?”

“No,” he mutters, but he’s getting there. He should probably call it quits while he’s still ahead.

Martinex snorts at him and wanders over to the desk to put the decanter away. It’s then that he spots the second glass and shoots Stakar a dirty look—or as best as he can with a face like his.

“Less than a lick,” Stakar mumbles in his defense. No way in hell he’d get a kid drunk. “I swear.”

Martinex shakes his head in disappointment and waves one of the men standing outside into the room. “Where do you want us to put him?”

Stakar deposits his glass on the desk and rises from his seat, stretching out his back. God, he feels ancient tonight. “Med Bay. Keep him in one of the corner cots—under constant supervision. He’s too young to sleep with the rest of the crew.”

The man nods and scoops the boy up into his arms. John curls up against the man’s chest and goes on sleeping as he’s carried out of the room.

As soon as the door slides shut again, Martinex turns to him and says, “I’ve been trying to get into contact with Yondu. No luck so far. Our men took some of the goods his team left behind, but there’s been no sign of anyone besides Tullk and his little crew on the planet’s surface.”

Stakar shrugs. Personally, he doesn’t enjoy tomb-raiding very much, but Yondu was never much of a religious man and has no qualms about disturbing such a hallowed place. He probably landed the Eclector somewhere well hidden on the planet to make it easier for his men to load their loot up.

“I’m through with waiting for Yondu,” Stakar grunts. A small part of him was hoping he’d get the chance to chew the old fool out, but it looks as though that was never meant to be. “Tell the pilot we’re leaving.”

“To Darbia?” Martinex asks.

“Later…Contraxia first. Let the crew have some downtime.”

“You want to call a meeting?” His first mate can already guess where this is really going.

If Yondu is still abducting children, the other Ravager factions have a duty to take a more proactive approach with him. After all, since Yondu’s persisted in wearing the flames, their whole reputation is at stake here.

“Just invite the regulars,” Stakar sighs. “No need to escalate this farther than necessary.”

“And the boy?” Martinex asks tentatively.

“We’re going to hold on to him for now. When he wakes up, assign him to someone who’s dealt with kids before. If it’s true he worked aboard Yondu’s ship, they should find something to keep him busy.”

Martinex mutters something that sounds like a small prayer for the unlucky sod tasked with shadowing the boy, but Stakar has a feeling this whole experience won’t turn out half as bad as they’re both imagining it will. John can be a reasonable person. Stakar’s seen a glimpse of that tonight.

“Is there anything else you needed to tell me?” Stakar asks. He’s about ready to drop.

Martinex nods at the glasses. “It’s for the best that this doesn’t happen again.”

“God almighty,” Stakar sighs, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, “it was just a petty tactic. He wants to pretend he’s a man, so I showed him an old-fashioned gesture of respect. I don’t plan on giving it to him ever again.”

“I was referring to you,” Martinex replies, walking purposely to the door. “You’re a miserable drunk when we’re not celebrating anything, Captain.”

“Ain’t drunk,” he mutters. He really isn’t.

But he understands Martinex’s concern.

His first mate pivots sharply when he reaches the door to salute him. Then he disappears out into the hall, probably to catch a few hours of sleep himself before they have to deal with the storm cloud hovering over their heads.

Stakar unzips the front of his jumpsuit and sits down heavily on his bed, sparing a quick glance at the faint imprint in his furs where the kid was sleeping.

Heaven help Yondu Udonta for the trouble he’s caused this child.

Heaven help them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Stakar, I feel, is emotionally constipated, but in a different way than Yondu. Stakar's dealt with kids before. It's just...it's been a while.
> 
> Speaking of Yondu, I feel that after having been a Kree slave for 20 years, he probably prefers to live in a more wild manner than the other Ravager clans, being somewhat bitter due to all the little pleasures he was denied the vast majority of his life. On the other hand, I imagine Stakar has a slightly more militant approach to running his crew. He's calm and efficient, whereas Yondu does everything fast and loose.
> 
> Anyhow, I tend to prefer writing longer chapters, so the next one might suddenly jump in length. I apologize in advance for the potential insanity.


	3. Obligations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I realize I wouldn't mind having a kid like Peter someday. He's smart and sassy and just the cutest little thing since puppies and rainbows...

Peter is of the opinion that he needs to leave.

Immediately.

He wakes curled up on a cot in the far back of a dimly light room, under the observation of a strange man stationed at the foot of Peter’s bed, his reptilian eyes unblinking. It’s an unnerving experience, to say the least, especially when Peter tries to move. He feels sluggish and weak and thirsty, like he’s been sedated or poisoned, and he’s got a migraine throbbing behind his eyes, one that makes the whole room spin.

It takes some effort, but slowly he manages to push himself upright. There’s a glass of water on the small bedside table, and he reaches for it without question. It’s cold and soothing against the back of his throat. He downs about half of it before his guard says, “Don’t make yourself sick.”

Peter makes a point of taking another large gulp before slowly lowering the glass to his lap. He’s been stripped of everything and drugged once already, so he’s in something of a foul mood. “Who’re you?”

“Creneth,” the man replies. His skin is glossy and green, covered in thousands upon thousands of tiny scales. “You can stay here today or accompany me on my shift. The choice is yours.”

Creneth speaks with remarkable clarity given his lack of lips. Better even than some of the more humanoid members of Yondu’s crew.

Peter wonders what Creneth’s job is on Stakar’s ship.

“If I stay here, will everyone leave me alone?”

A small curve appears at the corner of Creneth’s not-lips. He shakes his head.

Peter sighs and sips his drink. On the Eclector, Yondu would’ve just sent him to his makeshift bedroom and locked him in if he was being a menace. Not that Peter enjoyed being tossed about and confined to an old storage closet, but at least Yondu afforded him a little privacy.

“Where are you working today?” Peter asks, because on the Eclector everyone rotates their duties. Peter’s tried his hand at a little bit of everything, although always under supervision.

“I’m an engineer,” Creneth replies. “For the most part, anyway. You just have to sit and watch me repair things.”

“I can repair stuff too.”

Creneth shakes his head and laughs, like he doesn’t believe Peter is capable.

Peter sips more of his water. Then he glances down at his white shirt. “Can I have my clothes back?”

Creneth reaches for something on the floor by his feet, then tosses a small stack of leathers onto the bed. Peter returns his glass to the bedside table and grabs the pile, unfolding it to reveal his trousers and his boots.

No jacket though.

Peter frowns. “Where is it?”

“The coat?” his guard asks. “Don’t know. They’ve either stashed it away somewhere or burned it. It’s practically blasphemous.”

Peter only remembers hearing the word ‘blasphemous’ in church before, back when his mom was well enough to take them every odd Sunday.

He didn’t think a jacket could be considered an unholy thing.

“But it’s mine,” Peter protests. “You don’t see me destroying your stuff, do you?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Creneth crosses his arms and turns away from Peter. “If you’re coming, get dressed. We need to eat before we head out.”

Peter can feel a lump forming in his throat but he tries to ignore it as he swaps the white trousers for his leather ones and laces up his boots. He earned that jacket after his first heist. Yondu even asked the tailor to make it on the smaller side so that Peter wouldn’t have to struggle too much with it, promising the boy he’d get a newer one once he grew out of it.

As old as he is now, Peter knows it isn’t appropriate to cry. So he doesn’t. He sucks it up and stomps out of the Med Bay after Creneth, feeling a little chilly with just the white shirt, but too bitter to ask for one of their coats. He thinks he’d rather die than be caught Stakar’s leathers.

Creneth tries to make their breakfast a quick affair, one of his companions having already set two bowls of broth and a stick of bread aside for them in the mess hall. The food’s cold by the time they get there, but it’s still good. Peter forgoes using his spoon to drink it straight from the bowl. It tastes fantastically close to beef.

Just as he’s polishing off his meal, Stakar strolls into the mess hall and across the room toward the food counter. Then man looks preoccupied, like his mind’s a million miles away.

Creneth catches Peter staring and jostles his elbow with his own. “You wanna say hello?”

“Why would I say hello?” Peter mutters, raising his bowl to his lips. He never used to greet Yondu in the morning, so why would he waste his breath on this jerk?

Creneth shrugs. “I don’t know…’cause he saved you?”

Peter chokes on his last mouthful of broth. By the power of some divine grace, he manages _not_ to splatter it all over his white shirt.

“You okay?” Creneth asks, rubbing him on the back.

Once he’s gotten a hold of himself again, Peter squints at Creneth and says, “He took me! He took me away and he isn’t gonna let me go home!”

“Pipe down,” the man sighs. “This issue is a lot bigger than you think.”

“What issue?” Peter snaps. He wishes people would stop asking him questions and start telling him what the hell was going on here. “Why can’t I go back to the Eclector?”

“That’s not for me say,” Creneth replies. Then he glances across the room to where Stakar’s seated himself beside Martinex, digging into his own meal now. “You should ask Captain Ogord.”

Peter stares at the man in question for a long, hard moment. He contemplates storming over there, but then Stakar glances his way and Peter loses his nerve.

If he never speaks to Stakar again, it’ll be too soon.

“Are you done yet?” Peter mutters.

The men sitting adjacent to them chuckle. Creneth just shakes his head and continues his meal at a leisurely pace, if for no other reason than to irritate him.

Eventually, they finish up in the mess hall. Creneth leads him down to the main hanger, a beast of a place that’s still swarming with people. Peter glances up at the rows upon rows of ships stacked above each other, suspended from chains or docked into metal frames, all poised and ready to go out their respective gates. For some reason, many of them are in a state of repair.

“Had a hell of a fight just a few cycles ago,” Creneth explains as he grabs a tool box off a shelf by the door. “And we’re upgrading everything.”

“Did you lose?” Peter asks, eyeing a horrendously busted up ship, one of its wings twisted down at an odd angle. It’s left engine’s been blown to smithereens. Two women are currently trying to pry a dented panel off what’s left of its exterior.

Creneth laughs. “Do you think we’d still be alive if we did?”

He supposes not. “Who were you fighting?”

“The Kree.”

Peter makes a face.

Yondu never much liked them either.

Creneth leads him over to the warped ship and nods at the two ladies before heading up the ramp. Eagerly, Peter runs after him, feeling just a little thrill when Creneth climbs into the flight deck. If it’s anything like an M-ship, he just might be able to fly it in a pinch.

A glance at the pilot’s seat informs Peter that the set-up isn’t, in fact, all that different than Yondu’s M-ships, although there’s an extra panel of switches by the left arm-rest that he’s never seen before. Even the radio has a similar design, as well as the powered down holo-screen. If Peter had a moment alone in here, he could probably send out a message.

Creneth steps past the main pilot’s seat and crouches down in front of the dashboard, broken glass crunching underfoot. There’s a hole about the size of a basketball in the windshield above them.

“Did they survive?” Peter asks.

“Hm?” Creneth grunts questioningly as he pops the grate under the dash off. A tangle of wires drops down in front of him, the rubber sealant noticeably melted away on a few. 

“The pilots,” Peter elaborates, glancing over his shoulder at the two other seats tucked away in the back. Both have spare controls for flying the ship, as well as an additional set of handles. He’s betting this is where the front gunmen sit.

“Yeah,” Creneth sighs. “They were wearing their respirators and they were close to the mothership.” Glancing over his shoulder, he waves Peter over to the pilot’s seat. “Go ahead. She’s out of juice. You won’t set anything off accidentally.”

Peter’s both irked that the man thinks he would be so clumsy and pleased that Creneth doesn’t realize he knows his way around a ship. Even if this one has no power, Peter might eventually get his hands on a functioning radio if they work in the hanger for more than a single shift.

Now that he has something that resembles a plan, Peter crawls up into the seat, curls his legs under his tiny body, and closes his eyes. He’d give anything to have his Walkman right about now, but he’s content with the notion that he might have it back in his hands sooner than anyone thinks.

He doesn’t quite fall asleep, but he’s quiet enough that when Creneth finishes up his job and turns around, he looks surprised to see Peter still sitting there.

Obviously pleased with the boy’s behavior, Creneth ruffles Peter’s hair. “And they said you might be a handful. You didn’t budge at all, did you?”

Peter smirks.

Patience, as his mother used to say, is a virtue.

Together, they return to the mess hall for a second meal. Creneth then shows him where to go to relieve himself before escorting Peter back to the hanger to continue his work on the same ship. This time he hauls a larger case with him and has Peter hand him tools until he’s replaced all the faulty wires and part of the dashboard’s warped metal frame.

At the end of the proverbial day, Creneth takes him back to the mess hall one last time, seating them beside a Xandarian and a Krylorian who try not-so-covertly to probe him about his ‘job’. Creneth spares a glance at Peter briefly and says, “He’s better behaved than my own kids ever were.”

Peter blinks in surprise. “You have kids?”

Creneth nods. “For a while. My ex ran off with them when they were still young.”

“Have you ever gone looking for them?” Peter asks, wondering about his own absentee father. He used to pretend the man was frantically searching for him back when Peter was still eight years old and learning the ropes on the Eclector’s ship. He learned very early on, though, that his father probably didn’t even know he was alive.

“No,” Creneth replies, sighing, as though this is a conversation he’s had one too many times before. “And I likely never will. Somehow, I don’t think they’d be proud of my accomplishments as a criminal.”

Peter frowns. “Maybe they wouldn’t care…Maybe they just want to be found?”

Creneth and his companions stare at Peter for a moment. Peter ignores them, determined to finish his soup while it’s still warm.

Once he’s done, he expects Creneth to escort him back to the Med Bay, but Martinex approaches their table and nods at Peter. “Captain wants to speak with this one again.”

“Can I decline?” Peter grumbles.

Creneth laughs. “He’s not very talkative, but I’m sure the Captain can squeeze a word or two out of him.”

Martinex nods. “Any trouble today?”

“Not the slightest,” Creneth replies. “I wouldn’t mind watching him on my next shift, if you’re looking for volunteers.”

“Are you sure?” Martinex asks, obviously surprised.

“He did everything I asked,” Creneth elaborates. “Barely made a peep. I was able to finish my work on time.”

There’s a moment of stunned silence, but Martinex finally nods his head slowly and turns back to Peter. “Come with me, John.”

Peter moans and rises to his feet. He doesn’t want to talk to Stakar anymore, and he doesn’t understand why Stakar wants to talk to him either. It’s not as though Yondu shared any grand secrets with Peter that anyone might find particularly useful.

Resigned to his fate, Peter follows Martinex to the Captain’s quarters, where he’s immediately instructed to stand outside in the hallway with some guard while the first mate ducks inside to speak with the man in private. Peter suddenly feels both angry and afraid, like he wants to scream, but not enough to risk someone slapping him into submission.

“You okay, kid?” the woman asks. She looks human but for a series of tiny bones jutting out of the crest of her cheeks and eyebrows. Admittedly, Peter thinks they’re kind of cool.

“No,” Peter says. Then, indecisively, “I mean, yes.” And subsequently, now worried that she might think he’s staring too hard at her face, “You’re very pretty.”

She quirks one of her magnificent eyebrows at him and smiles. “Smooth talker, huh? You’re going to be quite the heartbreaker when you grow up.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Peter asks, because his mom used to say that about him too, but he seems to recall from television that ‘heartbreakers’ were just lousy people with commitment issues.

She shrugs. “That all depends on you.”

Peter shrugs too, because he figures he has years yet to find out, and then asks, “What do you think of Stakar?”

She looks momentarily thrown by his question. “I think he’s one of the greatest men in the universe. How do you find him?”

He contemplates her question for a second. Then he says, “I hate him.”

For some reason, his answer surprises her. “What, even more than _Yondu_?”

Peter opens his mouth and then slowly closes it again. He _does_ hate Yondu, he’s certain of that… but his aversion to other the man is a day-by-day kind of thing now. More of gentle current that runs far beneath all conscious thought, unlike the tsunami of emotions that hit him when he was first abducted. In fact, he finds he’s been craving Yondu’s approval for a lot of things lately, although he can’t explain why.

Coming to something of an epiphany, Peter quietly says, “I don’t really hate Yondu…not much, anyway.”

He doesn’t know why the woman gives him such a sad look, but his next line of questioning is interrupted by the sound of Stakar’s door sliding open and his first mate stepping out into the hall. “He’ll see you now.”

“Goodbye,” Peter mumbles to the woman before he dragging his feet into the room. Predictably, Martinex doesn’t follow him in. Just closes the door behind him.

Stakar is sitting at his desk, chair angled toward the door. “Hello, John.”

Peter knows he’s about to be interrogated again, so, while he still has an opening, he says, “Can I ask you a question?”

Stakar’s left eyebrow creeps up toward his hairline. He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, like he’s bracing himself for something. “Alright. Shoot.”

“Why are you mad at Yondu?”

Stakar gaze immediately flickers away. Peter’s noticed people do that a lot when they’re trying to find a way to edge themselves around the truth. 

“Well…” Stakar tilts his head back and stares off into the distance, like he expects to find his answer on another plane of existence. “ _Mad_ isn’t the right word for it, really…”

Peter waits patiently for him to elaborate. But when it becomes apparent to that Stakar has no intention of giving him a straight answer, he turns back toward the door.

It slides open to reveal Martinex chatting with the woman standing guard, both of whom abruptly fall silent at the sight of Peter. Martinex quickly ushers him back inside, of course, and punches something into the panel beside the door. There’s an audible _click_ after it slides shut again as it undoubtedly locks into place.

Exasperated, Peter turns back around. Stakar’s eyes are closed and he’s rubbing his forehead, like he’s got a migraine coming on.

“I was told you were a perfect gentleman today, but everyone seems to forget you were crawling around the air vents less than a cycle ago.” He pauses here to laugh a little, but he sounds more weary than amused. “Boy do you ever have an attitude problem, kid…”

“So do you,” Peter mutters.

“Yeah, well, I’m the Captain.” Stakar’s drops his arm and opens his eyes. “And since you’re on _my_ ship, you’re gonna show me a little respect. You got that?”

Peter doesn’t know if Stakar’s riling himself up to smack him, so he doesn’t say anything. Just leans back against the door, wondering how long he’ll last before Stakar gets what he wants out of him.

“No,” Stakar says, waving him toward the bed. “Sit down. You don’t get to stand a world away and ignore me.”

Peter sighs, but begrudgingly does as he’s told, taking up the same spot he sat the other night.

“I don’t understand how Yondu does it,” Stakar mutters, though more to himself than Peter. “Does he hit you? The man’s got no patience at all…I can’t imagine he’d stand for any kind of insubordination from you.”

Honestly, Peter doesn’t remember the last time anyone knocked him about, unless it was in jest. He shakes his head. “He used to take my Walkman.”

Stakar gives him a blank look. “Your what?”

“My music player.”

“Right.” Stakar scratches his chin thoughtfully. “Which is on the Eclector…Your jacket, on the other hand…”

Peter freezes.

He doesn’t know why he feels so attached to the darn thing. He’s nowhere near as sentimental about it as his Walkman, but a lot of sweat, blood, and tears went into earning that little bit of leather. Nobody in Yondu’s crew showed him any kind of respect before he got it.

Somehow, that jacket became a symbol he was going to survive whatever the universe wanted to throw his way.

But Peter doesn’t know if he’s willing to broker a deal over it.

Stakar lets the implication of his statement hang in the air as he moves on with their conversation. “I called Yondu after we picked you up. He hasn’t made any demands for your return. Didn’t even mention you, actually.”

Peter frowns. He doesn’t think that’s true, but there’s a sudden weight in his chest that doesn’t quite belong there. It feels like a _teensy_ bit of belief, because Stakar would certainly know his name isn’t ‘John’ if Yondu had bothered talking about him.

Then again, Stakar might not have called Yondu at all.

“Prove it,” Peter says.

There’s an awful little curl at the corner of Stakar’s lips that suggests he isn’t lying. “You can read, kid?”

A little nervous now, Peter nods.

Stakar opens the holo-screen over his desk and rolls his chair aside to give Peter a decent view. Then he pulls up his recent call logs. Surely enough, Yondu’s number is on the list of outgoing calls. Twice. Once almost a cycle ago and again just recently.

The weight in Peter’s chest grows a little heavier.

Even so, something feels terribly off about this.

As Peter tries to put a finger on this crushing new sensation, Stakar closes the call log and gives him a steady look, like he can almost understand the pain Peter is going through. Something soft and human flickers across his eyes. “I’m sorry, kid, but Yondu never was the nicest guy.”

Numbly, Peter nods.

“Did he ever mention ego?”

Peter doesn’t know what that’s supposed to be. Yondu has one hell of an ego, sure, but he’d be the last person to ever admit to it. “No...”

Stakar crosses his arms and leans back in his chair again. “Did he tell you _anything_ about why he picked you up?”

“Said I was a snack for the boys,” Peter reiterates, thinking back to that fateful night. “But he kept me around ’cause I’m the right size for thieving.”

Frowning, Stakar stares thoughtfully at the floor for a minute. “…How long have you been with him?”

Peter’s pretty sure it’s been about three years now, but he can’t be too sure. He also doesn’t know how to explain Earth time to Stakar, especially since he looked like he was having difficulty believing Peter was eleven yesterday. The years on his planet must be a lot longer.

“Not very long,” Peter replies, hoping his answer will satisfy the man.

Stakar is obviously baffled by his response, but he doesn’t seem to think Peter is trying to be obtuse. He just nods, accepting the facts as they are.

As the weight in his chest gradually gets weightier, Peter quietly asks, “What are you going to do with me?”

Stakar clears his throat. “You’ve ever heard of a place called Contraxia?”

Peter has, but it definitely wasn’t a planet Yondu ever let him shuttle down to with either Kraglin or any of the other men. ‘ _Disreputable’_ is how Yondu once described it, although he said it in such a way that made it sound as though that was just another word for ‘ _fun’_.

For one horrifying moment, Peter wonders if the man is going to sell him off to someone there.

Hesitantly, he nods.

“I’m meeting up with a few of the other Ravager captains when we get there,” Stakar explains. “I’ll introduce you to them, and then together we’ll decide what to do with you.”

“Why?” Peter asks, the sensation that something is going on behind the scenes suddenly intensifies. He’s starting to feel more frustrated than melancholy again. “You can drop me off anywhere. I can take care of myself.”

He doesn’t know if that’s true or not, but as soon as Stakar releases him, he’ll call Yondu and sort this whole mess out for himself. If it’s true that Yondu doesn’t want him, then…

Well, he’ll figure that problem out when he gets there. Peter’s never been great at throwing together elaborate plans, but he’s a quick learner. He’ll survive somehow.

“You’re too young,” Stakar replies.

“Then drop me off somewhere they keep other homeless kids,” Peter argues, the weight in his chest slowly burning away to anger.

Stakar closes his eyes and rubs his temple again. “It’s not that simple…”

Peter rises to his feet suddenly, hands clenched into tiny fists at his sides. “Because this isn’t really about me, is it? It’s about _Yondu_.”

Stakar’s eyes shoot open at his outburst. “Settle down, John.”

“No,” he snaps, shoulders trembling. “You’re _lying_ to me about him, aren’t you?”

Frowning, Stakar rises to his feet as well, expression dark and stormy. He’s an imposing figuring at his full height, but pretty much everyone is to Peter at this age. All of the adults tower above him.

 _Always_.

“This affair is far more complicated than you could possibly understand,” Stakar says sternly.

“But you won’t even try to explain it to me!” Peter shouts.

“The truth’s an ugly thing,” Stakar seethes, moving forward. “You shouldn’t have to deal with it.”

“I can handle it!”

“ _But you can’t_!” Stakar snaps, voice going up just a notch. It startles Peter enough that he tries to take a step back, but he bumps into the mattress and parks himself right back where he was before.

Stakar crouches down in front of him, uncomfortably close. “You’re a _child_! You shouldn’t be roughing it out with that blue bastard and his band of cretins. Can’t you see, I’m trying to protect you, kid?”

Peter was still trembling, but it wasn’t just with anger anymore. He was confused and afraid, and he didn’t know what to think of this whole situation. Why should Stakar care about his well-being? Stakar was just another stranger in a long line of distant relatives and doctors and criminals who were oh so proficient at telling Peter what he should be thinking or doing without ever bothering to tell him the _why_ behind it all…

Peter was tired of people pushing him around.

“But you don’t even know me…” Peter says, voice weak, exhaustion creeping into his bones.

“Doesn’t matter,” Stakar sighs. He’s still frowning, but Peter can tell his temper is dwindling by the hint of fatigue in his voice. “Where I come from, if you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for them from there on out.”

“But what are you saving me _from_?” he begs.

Stakar eyes bore into Peter’s for what feels like a small eternity. Peter can see a little bit of his own anger and sadness reflected in them, a great swell of emotion just waiting to burst free. But ultimately Stakar says nothing. Simply rises to his feet and shakes his head, like he doesn’t have the words to describe the things he knows.

Peter wonders what unspeakable evil Stakar thinks Yondu’s committed. Peter’s already seen Yondu cheat men and steal from them and kill them gleefully with his arrow or the airlock, all of which horrified Peter when he was just starting out as a Ravager. But witnessing these kinds of cruelties don’t scare him very much anymore. They just wash over him like a wave. Real, but transient and easily forgotten, another Life Lesson in the vast emptiness of space.

Peter’s shoulders slouch. His gaze gravitates toward the door of its own volition. He wants to crawl into bed and listen to his Walkman, but that’s gone forever now too, just like his mom.

He wonders when the universe will tire of him.

“You should rest,” Stakar says, giving voice to both their thoughts. He paces over to the door and types something into the panel on the wall beside it, body angled so that Peter doesn’t see the code.

Peter doesn’t have the energy to be angry with Stakar anymore tonight. He’s a prisoner here. He gets that.

This antagonism between them probably isn’t ever going to change.

Pushing himself to his feet, Peter shuffles over to Stakar and waits for him to open the door. Stakar spares him one last look before he does. “Good night, John.” He reaches down to squeeze Peter’s shoulder. “I have your best interests at heart here. I hope you realize that.”

“Yes, Captain,” Peter murmurs before exiting the room. The woman posted in the hall nods at Stakar and then leads Peter away. Thankfully, she doesn’t try to engage him in any kind of conversation. Not that Peter doesn’t have anything to say. He has plenty.

He just knows nobody’s really listening.

~*~*~*~

It takes them a while, but eventually they get it working again.

The transmitter still sparks between calls, and most of their messages are heavily distorted, but the static isn’t as bad as it was yesterday. Kraglin still can’t make out half of what Renner’s shouting over his radio, but he doesn’t sound uneasy or pained. Just cranky.

“You’ve gotten a hold of Tullk yet?” he asks D’narvi as the man finally ends the call and fiddles with the controls. The flight deck is a mess, but basic repairs have already been made and they’re in good enough shape to get off the ground. Thankfully, the damage that was dealt to the rest of the Eclector is at a minimum. Except the hanger, of course, which is where most of the fighting went down. Two of their M-ships are ruined beyond recognition.

“I’m on it,” D’narvi mutters, shooing Kraglin away with his hand.

Exhausted, Kraglin wanders to the back of the flight deck, joining Yondu at one of the navigation stations where the man is wiping off his arrow. There’s still green gunk cemented to the tip. Kraglin’s knives are covered with same godawful gunk. He can’t even imagine how they’re going to get the stuff off the walls and ceiling.

“Death toll’s up to three now,” Kraglin sighs as he drops into the seat beside his captain. As hard as it is to lose a member of the crew, their losses are relatively small given the ordeal they just went through.

Even so, Yondu’s noncommittal grunt as he works away at his arrow is a sure sign that he’s still tense about this whole situation. Kraglin knows he’s listening to the conversation D’narvi is now having with Tullk, waiting for the death toll to take another unfortunately jump.

Kraglin tries to tune out the conversation himself, but his brain still subconsciously latches onto certain key words, such as when Tullk’s garbled voice eventually says ‘ _Peter_ ’.

Yondu finally looks up from his arrow, eyes narrowed. “Tullk’s group was attacked?”

D’narvi glances over his shoulder at them, giving Yondu a puzzled look. “Not by the beasts, Captain. He says Stakar Ogord showed up out of nowhere.”

Yondu drops his arrow into the holster at his hip and tosses the cloth he was using to clean it on the panel in front of him. He rises from his seat. “ _Stakar_? Did his men open fire?”

“They pulled their guns on Tullk, but no one was shot,” D’narvi explains, “He says they took Peter.”

A hush falls upon the room. The men doing repairs on one of the other navigation stations crane their heads toward the Captain. The ones who’ve grown fond of the boy despite themselves look a mite concerned; Halfnut, who’s sanity Kraglin has always questioned, looks giddy at the prospect of another fight.

Yondu is unnaturally silent. There’s a dark look in his eyes, the kind he usually gets whenever they encounter the Kree, like there isn’t a name for the rage boiling beneath the surface of his quiet façade. His hands clench into fists and the corner of his jaw twitches as he grits his teeth together.

“ _Stakar_ ,” he all but spits.

Halfnut, on the other hand, really does spit. Ogord is an unpopular man among their number. He exiled them, and now he’s stolen from them too, something that goes against his own code. It’s a veritable slap in the face.

“Get that jackass online,” Yondu seethes, clenching and unclenching his fists in agitation. Kraglin knows the man’s turmoil has to do with more than just Stakar’s audacity at abducting a crewmember, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Yes, sir,” D’narvi says, swiveling back around in his chair. The uneasy silence persists as Yondu strolls over to their communications expert, punctuated by the heavy footfalls of his boots against the floor. The Captain stops expectantly at his elbow, hands on his hips, as D’narvi types in Stakar’s number. The holo-screen flickers to life before them.

But almost as soon as their call goes out, it gets disconnected.

They’ve been blocked.

“Sir?” D’narvi asks, clearly confused on how to proceed.

Yondu whips around, his fury finally spilling over. “That _sonofabitch_!” He shouts, kicking over a stray panel that was blown off the roof earlier. “That _coward_!”

There’s an angry murmur of agreement from the men. They’re still running off the adrenaline from their last fight and are obviously cruising for another.

“ _He thinks he can just steal from us_?!” Yondu looks like he’s about ready to hit something else, but his options are limited given the fragile state of the flight deck. “Set a course for Xandar and get a hold of our informants—we’re gonna sell the oil and find out where the hell Stakar’s holed up. I’m gonna _end_ that asshole once and for all.”

One of their men hops into the pilot’s seat as Yondu turns to D’narvi. “Call Tullk and tell him what’s happening first. We’ll meet him on Xandar.”

“Aye,” D’narvi says.

Kraglin tenses. If Yondu wants to go after Stakar, he can’t do it directly. The Starhawk is bigger than the Eclector and better equipped. They’re more than likely to lose.

Yondu finally paces back over to him, hands still on his hips, red eyes burning. He gives Kraglin one long, hard look and says, “I know what you’re thinking.”

Kraglin quirks an eyebrow at him. “A full-frontal assault ain’t gonna work.”

“I ain’t stupid,” Yondu mutters. “If Stakar’s gonna hide like a coward, he’s gonna die like a coward with my arrow in his back. As soon as he’s planet-side, we’ll get him.”

“What do you think he’s going to do with the boy?” Kraglin asks.

Yondu shakes his head, like he can’t even begin to imagine. “Quill’s good as dead if Stakar takes him back to Earth.”

Kraglin would never admit that he’s grown attached to the boy, but the sense of futility he gets from the notion of the original wheel of Peter’s fate slowly gaining momentum again is a hard thing to swallow. The kid’s a good thief and a funny little guy. It’s taken a while, but Kraglin thinks the boy’s starting to warm up to his new position in life.

“We’ll get him back,” Kraglin says. They have to. Even if Stakar had taken someone else, Yondu’s reputation would take a hit for letting his old mentor pick off his crew.

They can’t let Stakar get away with an insult of this magnitude.

Yondu nods, but Kraglin can tell the man isn’t entirely listening to him anymore. His eyes are distant. Still burning, but distant, like he’s picturing the moment he introduces Stakar to his mystical ‘Maker’.

Kraglin’s got some choice words for Stakar and Martinex himself.

This battle between them, he thinks, is a little overdue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: More on Yondu soon. And the other members of Stakar's old gang. They're gonna have a hoot when they meet Peter, I promise. ;)


	4. Where there's a whistle, there's a way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I had the juice to do another chapter, so I slammed through it over the course of the last two nights. I don't have a beta, so I apologize if I missed any mistakes while I was trying to edit it. Feel free to point any of them out to me if you feel like they're glaring at you.
> 
> Now enjoy!

As soon as Peter crawls into his temporary cot, he’s wide awake again.

If he had his Walkman, he’d wind the tape all the way to one end, tuck his earphones over his head, and pass out somewhere between _Moonage Daydream_ and _Fooled Around and Fell in Love_. But he’s tuneless and a little afraid, which is a toxic combination right before bed, especially when he realizes he probably only has until they get to Contraxia to send a message out to someone on the Eclector. After that, he doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him or Yondu, and his ability to do _anything_ about it will certainly be reduced.

Who knows where he’s going to end up next?

Agitated, Peter kicks the sheets down to the foot of the bed. It’s dark inside the room except for a small light in the corner where a medical assistant is reading a holo-pad at his desk. He looks up when he hears Peter fussing about and says, “Go to sleep.”

“Can’t,” Peter replies, because it just ain’t possible under these circumstances. Then he gets an idea. “Can I go back to work?”

“What, _now_?” The man glances at the timepiece on his wrist. “You just got off a 13-hour shift. Do you think you could stay awake for the remainder of this one?”

Peter snorts at the question. He’s not five anymore. He’s more than capable of pulling an all-nighter. “Of course.”

The medical assistant glances at the wall of locked cabinets housing a variety of drugs and other medical equipment. “Do you want to help me go through inventory?”

“No,” he sighs, finally sitting up. “Creneth was showing me how to fix stuff. Can I help with the ships again?”

“You like the ships, huh?” the guy grins, powering down his holo-pad and pocketing the resulting cube as he rises from his seat. “Let me see if anyone’s willing to watch you. I’m not making any promises, though.”

Peter smiles and waits for the man to leave the room before he hurriedly swaps out his trousers for his leathers and his boots. He’s just finishing up the laces when the medic returns with an incredibly tall woman in tow. She looks pretty human, with dark brown hair pulled back in a tight braid and crows-feet wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, like she’s old enough to be somebody’s mother but would throttle you if you said as much to her face.

“This is Betham,” the medic introduces.

“You wanted to help out in the hanger?” Betham asks.

“Yes, please.”

She laughs. “ ‘ _Please_ ’…I haven’t heard that word in forever. Now come along. There’s work to be done.”

Peter jumps off the bed and follows her into the hall, trailing quietly in the periphery of her vision all the way to the hanger.

It’s still busy in there, but nowhere near as packed as it was during the main shift. Betham picks up a toolkit from the side shelf and leads Peter over to a different ship than the one Creneth was working on earlier. In fact, it looks just fine, which he supposes means this one is simply undergoing upgrades.

Betham goes straight for the front dash on the flight deck, opening her kit to reveal some kind of electronic device that hooks up to the main circuitry. She has Peter hand her tools and strip wires as she works, moving back and forth between the dash and the primary pilot’s seat, where she pulls up the holo-screen to type in commands.

As she goes over her work on the screen, she glances down at where Peter’s sitting cross-legged on the floor and asks, “Can you read?”

Peter takes moment to make a very important decision and shakes his head.

“Oh…I was going to show you something cool.” She turns off the holo-screen. “Maybe someday? You’re still young enough to learn.”

As soon as she’s finished installing the device, they move on to another ship. They get through a total of five in all before Betham cracks open the dash on the sixth ship and sighs. The wires look a little mangled, as though something was gnawing away at them.

“Goddamn orloni,” she mutters, glancing down into her tool box. “Hate those rodents…I have to grab a few things. Sit tight, okay?”

Peter smiles innocently and parks himself down on the floor.

As soon as Betham waltzes down the back ramp though, Peter hops into the pilot’s seat and pulls up the holo-screen. He can feel his little heart fluttering in his chest as he tries to remember how to send out a call. Then he sees the notification in the top left corner:

_-Radio malfunction-_

Peter glances down at the mangled wires dangling from the dash and slouches down in his chair. He can still send a written message, but someone on the Eclector might send a response, which will show up first thing the next time anyone opens the holo-screen. The out-going message will also be logged.

Taking a moment to wipe his sweaty hands off on his thighs, Peter opens the messenger port and writes up a quick note anyway, fingers trembling as he types: { _Stacar to Contractia. Ravager meeting. Do not reply. -Peter_ }

He hits send and closes the program again, shutting down the holo-pad before clambering out of the seat and back into his spot on the floor. He pulls out a spare wire from Betham’s kit and starts striping down the ends, like she showed him to earlier, although he does a miserable job of it with the way his hands are shaking.

All too soon, he hears a set of boots stomping up the ramp again. Two pairs, in fact, because right behind Betham is none other than Martinex.

Peter’s heart rate suddenly goes into overdrive, thumping so hard against his ribcage he’s almost certain they can hear it. Maybe someone was monitoring all out-going calls from the shuttles. He can’t be sure. He just has a feeling deep in his gut like he’s been caught red-handed.

Nervously, he climbs to his feet and wipes his sweaty hands off on his thighs again. Betham spares him a glance before she crouches in front of the dash to resume her work.

Martinex stops halfway up the ramp to the flight deck and gives Peter an indecipherable look. “You’re not supposed to be awake right now,” he says finally.

Peter tries to swallow the lump in his throat. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“We’re landing at the start of the next shift.” Martinex waves him down the ramp. “Try to rest with the few hours we have left.”

He assumes he’s gotten away with the message, at least for now, so he gives Betham his thanks and follows Martinex off the ship. As they’re strolling down the hanger, he side-eyes the man and asks, “How come you’re awake?”

Martinex doesn’t say anything.

Peter decides to hazard a guess: “Is it because you can’t sleep either?”

Martinex still says nothing. But after a beat, he ruffles Peter’s hair.

Naturally, Peter tries to pat it back into place, but it was a rat’s nest to start off with so there’s no way of really improving it. Even so, fussing with it distracts him from the gentle tremor he’s got from his most recent adrenaline spike. Leaves him feeling kind of drained, actually, which is probably for the best, because he’s exhausted enough now that he only manages to tug off his boots before he collapses on top of his cot in the Med Bay and begins to drift away.

Martinex watches him flop into a comfortable position with something that might be amusement before turning to the medic. “He’s supposed to keep the same hours as the Captain. Don’t let this happen again.”

“Yes, sir,” the man says sheepishly, saluting the first mate on his way out. He glowers at the door once it slides shut and then glances over at Peter. “Well…did you at least have a good time?”

“Yeah,” Peter mumbles as sleep finally envelopes him.

If anything, it was productive.

~*~*~*~

There’s something eating away at him from the inside and he doesn’t know what to call it.

The sensation creeps up on him slowly, while he’s shaving, of all things. It comes with the first glide of the blade against his skin and intensifies after he wipes off any loose hairs with a damp cloth. When he gazes into the small mirror above the sink, he’s greeted with the same rugged face he’s seen every day for god knows many years, still bitter and spry and ready to take on the universe. But today he feels so much older than usual. It’s like someone’s taken a chip off his heel and tossed it away, leaving behind a tiny crack that threatens to destroy his whole foundation. It feels dangerous…

Feels _familiar_.

His mind wanders to John and the boy’s demands for the truth. The kid isn’t stupid, but he isn’t half as tough as he thinks either. There are things Stakar knows that would shatter his little world. Things like a string of missing children or a planet with an insatiable hunger. Things like war. Things like _betrayal_ , cold and metallic against the throat, but still piping hot in the veins…

He leans forward and splashes water in his face. Takes a deep breath. Once he’s found his centre, he dries himself off and heads for the hanger.

He already knows before he gets there that something is going to be wrong. It won’t be anything monumental, because there’s a limit to how badly anything can go today, but it’ll still be moderately annoying.

In fact, he can feel the muscles in his jaw and his shoulders tensing before he even claps eyes on the kid. And when he does, they only knot themselves tighter, because instead of wearing the leathers he instructed his men to give the boy, John is bundled up in a cloth coat and a thick scarf. Neither is big enough that he’s swimming in it, but Stakar already knows it won’t keep the boy warm on the planet’s surface. Contraxia is trapped in perpetual winter, after all.

“He’s going to freeze,” he snaps at the befuddled guard watching over the boy, then glances around the base of the small transporter for his first mate.

As soon as Martinex spots him, he jogs over. “Captain?”

Stakar waves a hand at the child; said child rocks innocently back and forth between his heels and the balls of his feet. “What the hell?”

Martinex takes one look at John and then meets Stakar’s gaze again. His prolonged silence is very telling.

Stakar whips his head back around at the kid, “Did you bite someone?”

“What— _no_!” John squawks indignantly, reaching up to the pull the thick scarf down and away from his mouth. It’s obvious he did _something_ to break his warden’s resolve, but Stakar can only speculate as to what that is. “I ain’t wearing your leathers.”

“You want to freeze to death down there?” Stakar mutters. He waves his hand at the guard. “Get him a proper coat.”

John narrows his eyes at Stakar as the man runs off. “If it ain’t my jacket, I won’t wear it.”

“If you don’t wear it,” Stakar retorts, “I’m burning your jacket the moment we get back.”

John opens his mouth to protest. Then quickly snaps it shut again. 

“Sir,” Martinex says.

Stakar whips his head back around, hoping for his first mate’s sake that Martinex isn’t about to make the mistake of admonishing him for his behavior. Stakar’s in the right here. He knows it. “What?”

“Krugarr called to inform me everyone is already gathered at the _Dwarf Star_ ,” he replies smoothly. “They’re in the usual room.”

Stakar fidgets with the hem of his left glove, pulling it taut over his fingers. It’s been quite some time since everyone from the old gang had both the time and presence of mind to get together again. Even so, they’re obviously still one founding member short, a sad situation that ain’t ever gonna change.

Stakar nods and continues fidgeting with his gloves, watching the kid out the corner of his eye when the guard returns. John tugs the scarf and cloth coat off with more malice than is strictly necessary, but the blue leather jacket thankfully goes on without much fanfare. It even fits the boy better than his old one. Regardless, Stakar can tell by the sour expression on John’s face that this defeat is a hard pill to swallow. There might even be tears in the corner of the boy’s eyes, but John’s obviously too dignified to let them fall.

Stakar doesn’t know what the boy is going to do with himself once he grows up, but he’s going to do it with a lot of pride and vigor, that’s for sure. He’s just got that whole do-or-die vibe about him.

Finally suited up, John marches up the ramp of the transporter of his own accord and plops down in an empty seat at the far back. He distinctly does _not_ look at Stakar as the Captain passes by him toward the flight deck.

Stakar shakes his head and settles in for the trip.

It takes less than a minute to get down to the planet. There are already several motherships hovering above Contraxia’s atmosphere, but there’s an obvious space where only Ravager ships are parked for the time being. They’ve always had a lot of pull in this corner of the galaxy, both because a Ravager crew is just the right size for good business at one of the more disreputable haunts and because many clans have done a lot of work for independent employers who’ve set up shop on the planet. Stakar himself likes the place enough, although he’s heard through the grapevine that Yondu still shows up from time to time, and that just sets his teeth on edge.

They land nearby district E2, which is closer to the more exclusive bars and shadier businesses, so most the crew fans out as soon as they land in search of more complicated pleasures. Two men hang back with Stakar and Martinex to accompany him to the _Dwarf Star_ , eyes scanning the other ships in the landing zone. The boy stands between the four of them, gazing up into the sky, hands held out in front of him with an odd sense of reverence.

Stakar’s seen that child-like wonder before.

“It’s called ‘snow’,” he explains, wondering what the climate’s like on the boy’s home planet. He’s fair-skinned and his eyes are lightly pigmented, so Stakar just assumed he came from somewhere moderately cold and dark.

Caught in a moment of vulnerability, John visibly flinches before shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. He averts his gaze to the stone buildings on the left. A few of the establishments along the street are accented by neon colored signs.

The one on the very end advertises the ‘ _Dwarf Star_ ’.

Martinex plants a hand on John’s shoulder to guide him forward, Stakar trudging along behind them as the other men take up the rear. They’re not on their way to a fight, but it still somehow feels like it anyway.

As expected, the main floor of the bar is packed with the regular scum. There are private rooms upstairs, where Stakar already knows his companions are waiting, but he nods toward the bar and instructs his men to get John something to eat before bringing the boy upstairs. The usual clientele spares them no more than a passing glance once they catch a glimpse of the Ravager flame. Stakar knows there won’t be any trouble as he and Martinex make their way toward the back of the room and up the rickety stairs to the second level.

A couple of Charlie’s men are lounging around on the top step, chatting with one of Aleta’s girls, no doubt keeping guard against anyone who isn’t a clan member. They’re laughing over some personal joke, but they stop to salute him as he and Martinex pass. Stakar nods at them in turn as he makes his way to the end of the hall.

Sure enough, his old group is in the last room on the left, seated around the same old wooden table that’s been repaired god only knows how many times. They’ve fought, they’ve laughed, and they’ve mourned together in this room since before any of them were important. Stakar almost feels nostalgic for those days, especially when Mainframe’s charming voice chirps at him from her perch atop a stool.

“ _You made it_!”

“Of course,” he grumbles amiably, nodding first to his Jovian friend Charlie on his left and then at Krugarr, the Lem, his long red body tucked between the giant and their cybernetic companion. Stakar bows his head a little deeper at Aleta, who returns the gesture respectfully, sitting with her feet kicked up on the table as she peels the skin off an unfamiliar fruit with her knife. Stakar takes up the empty seat beside her as Martinex settles into the one closest to the open door.

There’s another chair collecting dust in corner that they’ll add to the circle once John arrives.

“It’s been too long,” Charlie says, his voice as deep and pleasant a rumble as Stakar remembers.

“I agree,” Krugarr replies, “although I wish we were here under better circumstances. I could hardly believe the transmission Martinex sent me.”

“Where is the boy?” Aleta asks, eyes flickering to the door.

“He’ll be up in a minute.” Stakar pulls off his gloves and tosses them onto the table. There’s a pitcher of something hopefully alcoholic in the centre, and thankfully Martinex is already leaning forward to pour them each a cup. Stakar takes a swig as soon as the man hands it to him.

Tastes just as bad as he remembers.

But the burn is good and he can feel some of the tension in his shoulders melt away at the sensation. They haven’t been back here since Yondu was exiled.

He wonders how apprehensive the others were to meet with him today.

“ _What’s he like_?” Mainframe squeaks excitedly. “ _Martinex said he was small and angry._ ”

Stakar takes a deep breath.

How to describe a boy like John?

“He won’t tell us where he’s from but he looks Xandarian,” he begins, thinking back on how little information John’s somehow managed to share with him so far. “Possibly eight or nine years old by their standards. He doesn’t seem to know how long he’s been with Yondu either, but given how closed off he is, I’m thinking somewhere around a couple of months to a year. You can tell he’s been traumatized in some way.”

Charlie shifts slightly in his chair. “Have you considered dropping him off on Xandar?”

Martinex snorts into his drink.

“That bad?” Krugarr asks.

“Yondu’s already taught him a few tricks of the trade,” Stakar elaborates. “He crawled into the air vents and cut one of my crew. I’m afraid he’s just going to run away from wherever we put him and call Yondu.”

“ _Captive’s Syndrome_?” Mainframe asks timidly.

“He’s just a boy,” Charlie says. “If we give him a little time and space, I’m sure we can work toward reversing the damage.”

“John’s not some innocent child anymore,” Stakar mutters. “Yondu’s whipped him up into becoming one of his criminal whelps. I’m almost tempted to believe the asshole intended to keep him.”

“Yondu’s always been a little wild,” Aleta agrees solemnly.

“Yondu’s more than a _little_ wild. He’s a goddamn animal…After what he’s done, I think someone should put him down like the dog he is.”

A heavy silence falls upon the room. It has the essence of disagreement, but it’s thickened with guilt, as though they’ve considered this possibility themselves already.

There’s just no forgiving someone who deals in children.

Relieved that this isn’t going to be quite as hefty an uphill battle that he anticipated, Stakar takes another swig from his drink. After they decide on what to do with the kid, they can figure out the best way to track down Yondu. Then they’ll put an end to this messy affair.

Stakar figures it’s a done deal.

And then he hears the whistle.

It’s just as sweet and sharp as he remembers, the perfect little herald of destruction. Stakar used to admire it.

Now it only fills him with anger and regret.

At the sound of Yondu’s battle cry, everyone’s out of their seats in a heartbeat, knives raised and blasters aimed at the door. The only problem is, Yondu isn’t there. Only John, leaning wearily against the door frame, blue eyes scanning each of them in turn. There’s a fire burning inside them, but it’s slightly muted with grief, as though he’s somehow disappointed with what he sees.

Aleta is the first to break up their bizarre tableau. Her cackle pierces the silence like a dagger, loud and shrill, just as formidable a battle cry as Yondu’s whistle.

John gives her a leery look.

“Everybody,” Stakar sighs, lowering his blaster, “this is John.”

Aleta sheathes her knife and saunters forward with a familiar crook at the corner of her lips, as though she truly appreciates the boy’s twisted sense of humor.

“Hello, John,” she says once she reaches the door. “My name is Aleta.”

John doesn’t immediately respond to her introduction. For one horrified moment, Stakar’s worried the boy’s going to spit at her, but then John nods his head politely and says, “Ma’am.”

Aleta laughs again, but this time it comes from the belly. Deep and natural. Warmer. “My—Stakar never said anything about you being a gentleman.”

John’s piercing gaze flickers to Stakar. “Does he know what that is?”

This time there’s a more communal laugh, of which Stakar does not partake. He would almost feel insulted by the obvious jab, except John isn’t laughing either, as though it pained him just as much to ask the question as it hurt Stakar to hear it.

Stakar’s not prepared to contemplate what that means, so he busies himself by collecting the chair from the corner and tucking it in between Aleta’s and his own. John, for once, takes the seat without any prompting.

Once all weapons are carefully tucked away again and everyone’s settled back in their seats, Aleta looks down at the boy at her elbow and asks, “What’s your surname, John? Do you have one of those?”

“…Wayne,” John says quietly.

“Is that your father’s name?” Aleta continues, her own voice soft and reassuring in a way Stakar hasn’t heard for years.

“I don’t know,” John mumbles. “I never met him.”

She shrugs. “That happens. Honestly, I wish I had never known mine. Sometimes, you’re better off without a father.”

Stakar glances at her over the top of John’s head, but she ignores him and moves on to the next line of questioning. “I come from a planet called Arcturus. Have you ever heard of it?”

“No,” John replies.

“Then you’re better off avoiding it,” she chuckles. “Not a hospitable place at all. What about your home world?”

John stares at the tabletop. “It’s…okay. Some people are nice. Others aren’t…I haven’t thought about it in a while.”

“Where are you from?”

“Missouri,” John sighs.

Stakar squints over at Martinex, only to see an equally perplexed look etched into the other man’s crystalline features. He doesn’t think either of them have visited a planet called ‘Misery’ before, but that just might be a colloquial name the natives use for it. That, or the kid’s just being overdramatic again.

“Hm,” Aleta says, which means she’s never heard of it either. “Do you have family back there?”

The boy’s shoulders visibly sag under the weight of that question. “My mom’s dead…I don’t want to go back.”

“Fair enough.” She finally looks up into Stakar’s eyes and holds his gaze. He has an inkling that he knows what she’s thinking. “What do you like most about being a Ravager, John?”

She’s of the opinion the boy should stay.

Stakar feels a flutter of something inside his chest, although he doesn’t have a name for it. It reminds him of another time and place when they were forced to make a very difficult decision, one that ended badly for all parties involved.

She’s urging him not to make the same fatal mistake twice.

After John’s given her question serious thought, he says, “I’m equal.”

“Equal?”

John smiles faintly. “I work, I get paid. If I wanna learn something, they teach me. As long as I’m not bothering anyone, I can do almost whatever I want.”

A child needs a little more structure in their life than that, but Stakar can see why being a Ravager would appeal to the kid. With no one to go home to, it only made sense the boy would want to find a way to strike out on his own. They could certainly teach him that.

There’s a mischievous glint in Aleta’s eyes now. “So if the choice was yours, you’d like to continue being a Ravager?”

“Definitely.”

“It’s a dangerous job,” Charlie cautions. “And not always profitable.”

John sizes the Jovian up. “Then why do you do it?”

“The freedom,” he replies, as though it were obvious.

“Freedom…” Johns says softly, almost wistfully, like it’s something he’s currently missing in his own life.

Stakar takes another swig of his drink.

“I initially had a long list of things I wanted to ask you,” Aleta continues, “but now that I’ve gotten the measure of you, I think I can answer them for myself.” She glances around the tables at her companions. “Any more questions for John?”

Charlie and Krugarr shake their heads. Nobody has anything left to say.

Stakar’s pretty sure this is the smoothest meeting they’ve ever had.

Having brought this minor interrogation to a satisfactory conclusion, Aleta turns back to John and says, “I’m going to send you off to one of the other rooms for now. There’s something we would like to discuss in private.”

“Is it about Yondu?” the boy asks point-blank.

Aleta doesn’t bother dancing around the truth. “Yes.”

There’s a very telling hesitation before John asks, “What are you going to do to him?”

“I don’t think we’ve quite decided yet. That’s what we need to discuss.”

John turns his head to Stakar. Doesn’t say anything. Just looks awfully sad.

The fluttering intensifies slightly.

“Once we’re done, we’ll answer your questions,” Stakar finally relents.

And he means that this time.

He doesn’t know how much John believes him, but the boy rises from his seat and allows Aleta to usher him to the door, where she then orders one of the guards to escort him to another room. As soon as John’s been dealt with, she closes the door and resumes her place at the table.

She stares pensively into her glass. Then she says, “I like him. He’s got spirit.”

“Is this really wise?” Charlie asks quietly. Despite his constant protestations, Stakar knows his resolve is weaker than it normally would be. He’d probably be throwing more of a fit right now if it hadn’t been for John’s cunning imitation of Yondu’s whistle.

“He’s broken,” Krugarr interjects. Knowing him, Krugarr could probably sense something was off with the kid’s aura the second he entered the establishment. Reading and manipulating the universe’s ambient energy was kind of his speciality. “Irreversibly so, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help him. With a little guidance, he can learn to live a normal life. Or as normal a life a Ravager could hope for…”

“So, we’re agreed on that part?” Aleta asks for clarification, eyeing each member of their group. “That he’s better off with one of us than deserted on some far-flung planet?”

Her wording doesn’t go over Stakar’s head, but he’s careful not to call her out on the unnecessary jab. In a way, he knows he deserves it.

“I think so,” Krugarr replies. “I, for one, would welcome him into my crew. I could show him how to mend his mind through meditation.”

Stakar shifts subtly in his seat. He knew coming here that John's ‘continued’ kinship with the Ravagers was the likeliest outcome of tonight’s discussion, but he never considered the possibility that anyone else would want to take him on as a ward. Since John was currently Stakar’s problem, he thought for sure they would leave the boy where he was now, as a member of the Starhawk’s crew.

Aleta leans back in her chair and kicks her feet back up on the table. “No offense, old friend, but your form of ‘meditation’ has a habit of cracking open the door to a whole other dimension of beastly things. I think the boy’s a little too young to learn how to fight for his life on another plane of existence.”

Krugarr scoffs at her, a remarkable feat for a mouthless being. His psychic voice rattles in their brains. “Then who would you appoint him to?”

“Preferably someone who’s dealt with children before and has the firepower to scare off Yondu should he decide to complete John’s delivery to his father.”

“ _So, meaning either you or Stakar_ ,” Mainframe says moodily, as though she was hoping to make a bid of her own for the child.

“John wouldn’t be able to live with me indefinitely,” Aleta replies. “As soon as he reached maturity, my girls would eat him alive. Literally.”

“ _Then who— **Stakar**?_ ” the android snickers. “ _From what Martinex’s told me, I don’t think he likes the boy very much._ ”

Stakar opens his mouth to give her a piece of his mind, but Aleta beats him to the punch. “You couldn’t be more wrong,” she says. “I think Stakar likes him an awful lot.”

Stakar never thought she would come to his defense in this matter. Stunned, he clears his throat and says, “If any of you louses wanted my opinion, you could just ask me. I’m sitting right here, for god’s sake.”

“That’s not a no,” Aleta points out.

Martinex stares at him curiously. “Captain?”

“I’m a strict supporter of the old faith,” Stakar mutters. They should already know that. He has a code and he follows it to a tee. “If you save a life, you’re responsible for it. The kid’s my business.”

“That’s a pathetic excuse,” Krugarr says. “We should have a vote.”

“Or you should ask the boy,” Charlie suddenly cuts in, arms crossed, looking horribly displeased with the whole affair. “He’s looking for equality. Give it to him.”

Krugarr laughs. “Then Stakar’s already lost.”

“You got a problem with me?” Stakar snaps.

Krugarr holds his hands up in defense, still chuckling. “Not at all. Just stating the facts.”

“I’m sorry, Krugarr, but I’m not in your corner with this one,” Martinex sighs. “Your crew is powerful, but small. Yondu could take you down in a firefight if he really wanted. You also have a nasty habit of leaving your proteges on that backwater planet _Earth_ to study the basics of your trade. Everyone knows the Terrans are headed for extinction sometime before the next century. What if John is there when Thanos or someone from the nine realms decides to use it as a battle ground?”

“I could easily take him somewhere else.”

“The point is, the boy needs to be protected _personally_. We know how you operate. You sometimes run off for cycles at a time without warning your crew.”

Krugarr leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “I didn’t realize you had a problem with how I handled _my_ crew.”

“You can do whatever the hell you want with your crew,” Martinex mutters, “but the boy isn’t a part of _your_ crew yet, so I think John should be informed of what he can expect from living with either of you before we ask him to decide.”

“Fair enough,” Charlie chimes in.

“Fine.” Krugarr slouches ever so slightly in his seat. “But I can’t see him choosing Stakar over me. And while we’re on the subject of ‘ _backwater_ ’ planets, Earth is a _lovely_ place to learn sorcery, thank you very much. Not only have the Asgardians avoided it for centuries, but the monastery there is superb. I think John would love it.”

“ _John Wayne doesn’t strike me as the meditative type_ ,” Mainframe mumbles, “ _He’s a fighter, that one._ ”

“Whatever,” Charlie grumbles, holding up a hand for silence. “Since the boy has taken a shine to Aleta, she will discuss John’s options with the boy once we’ve concluded this meeting. I think for now we should move on to the meat of the matter, wouldn’t you agree?”

“ _You mean Yondu?_ ” Mainframe inquires. “ _Assuming he isn’t already dead, I mean…_ ”

“He ain’t dead,” Aleta sighs. “Whatever’s keeping him out of contact won’t last forever. Eventually, he’s going track us down to collect his cargo and settle the score. We need to figure out how we’re going to deal with him when he does.”

There’s a grumble of assent from around the table. What had once made Yondu a powerful ally now defined him as one of their most formidable foes. He could kill everyone in the bar downstairs before the first body hit the floor if he wanted. And from a comfortable distance, no less.

If they were going to catch him, they had to be clever about it.

Thankfully, Stakar’s just that.

He polishes off his drink and slams his cup down on the table. Everyone watches him expectantly. After all, nobody knew Yondu or his methods better than him.

“I already have a plan,” he says. In fact, he’s been piecing it together ever since last night. Kept him awake most of the night just thinking about the last words he’d possibly ever exchange with the old blue bastard. Not that he has much left to say.

All he really wants to know is where the hell it all went wrong…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I think growing up Peter was a little bit of a prankster, just because he can fit into small places and charm his way out of sticky situations. He probably pulled the whistle-like-Yondu trick once aboard the Eclector and then never did it again after the target of his humor threatened to space him (but who couldn't, because Yondu was far too amused with Peter's gutsy attitude to let him). 
> 
> More Yondu coming up, I promise.
> 
> PS: Do you guys have any good Stakar fics you'd like to recommend? I know people write stories on websites other than AO3 and I have a real hankering for it now...
> 
> PPS: I forgot to mention that Krugarr is a sorcerer who practices the same kind of magic as Doctor Strange. In fact, Krugarr was his apprentice in the comics and learned the tricks of the trade from him before succeeding Strange as the Sorcerer Supreme. However, since he's already making mandalas in the movie, he might have a different origin story.


	5. Little Boy Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Let's face it: Peter's probably suffering from some form of PTSD. That's one of the reasons I figure he doesn't ever go home in the movie. Just thinking about Earth makes him anxious and tense.
> 
> It'll be interesting to see how he reacts to his home world in the next Avengers movie.

He’s dreaming.

He’s back on the Eclector, but the halls are empty. He calls out for attention, but nobody answers. It’s just him and his Walkman, earphones hooked around his neck, blasting static. It’s the soft kind though, like what you get between songs, except there are no songs on this tape and Peter intuitively knows there never will be.

He wanders aimlessly through the mess hall and the bunks until he decides that his best bet of finding anyone is on the flight deck. He’s wrong, of course, but at least a glance out the front windshield tells him the Eclector is hovering just above the atmosphere of a bizarre planet. The way the continents are shaped, Peter’s almost tempted to say it’s Earth, but…it isn’t Earth. It’s a monochromatic snapshot of his home world, grey and bleak and lifeless, like a photograph Peter once saw in a cheap magazine.

The sight of it is oddly disturbing, so he shoves his hands defensively into the pockets of his leather jacket and backs away. Except, he isn’t wearing his leather jacket. He’s wearing a black dress coat, the kind he wore to his cousin’s wedding the summer before he disappeared.

A glance down reveals that he’s wearing his matching black pants and shiny new dress shoes, but he knows he isn’t going to a wedding.

He’s going to a funeral.

Frightened, he tears off the coat and flings it at one of the navigation stations. It catches on a toggle and dangles there, mocking him. He doesn’t want to feel crisp and cold and formal. He wants to feel wild and _free_ , the way he usually does when he’s soaring through the stars, because Earth can’t get to him in space and neither can his mother’s death. So long as he’s up here, he can pretend she just went to sleep, that the doctors saved her after she flatlined and she’s finally healing for real now, lying in bed at home, listening to the radio…

 _“You can’t go back there,”_ Yondu agrees.

Peter whips around, almost tripping over his feet. The captain is sitting in the pilot’s chair, slouched down as though relaxing, one knee crossed casually over the other. His eyes are half-lidded and he’s smiling at Peter in a peculiar way, like Peter’s pulled off another job and he’s somehow proud of what the boy’s accomplished.

“Then why are we here?’ Peter asks, waving his hand at the empty planet. “It’s dead. Ain’t nobody there.”

 _“There’s plenty of people down there,”_ Yondu chuckles. _“Just not your old lady.”_

Peter’s eyes sting. “I know that…So, let’s _go_ already.”

Yondu laughs again, the way he sometimes does when he thinks Peter’s being overdramatic. _“Boy, who gives the orders around here? Me or you?”_

“…You do.”

 _“Then pipe down, ’cause I got something important to tell ya.”_ Yondu nods his head at the planet, smiling. _“Everyone you touch dies. Did you know that?”_

“What?” Peter glances back at the bleak planet. He sure as hell didn’t do that. “That ain’t true.”

 _“Sure is.”_ Yondu taps his chest, right over his sternum. Peter doesn’t know what that means. _“You touch ’em and they die. First your mama, and now me.”_

“I didn’t mean to,” Peter says, although he doesn’t know what he did wrong. How does he fix a problem he didn’t create? “You’re not really dead…are you?”

_“Not yet. But soon.”_

“No…” Peter mumbles, tears springing free. He rubs furiously at his eyes, but they just keep coming. “I’m sorry! _I’m sorry_! I didn’t mean to! P-please don’t leave me!”

 _“Hush up,”_ Yondu sighs, suddenly standing right beside him, a heavy hand resting on Peter’s shoulder. _“People come and go. That’s why you gotta put yourself first. Do what you got to do to survive, boy.”_

“I don’t know how,” he sobs.

Yondu gently bats Peter’s hands away and cups his own hand under the boy’s chin, turning his tear-streaked face up for inspection, the same way he did when Peter was first dragged aboard his ship. _“Fight if you have to fight; run if you can’t. If you’re outnumbered or caught, you **listen** , ‘cause as long as you’re still alive, you can get away… Got that?”_

Peter sniffles and nods. Or as best he can with his jaw in Yondu’s hand.

 _“Good.”_ Yondu releases him suddenly and ruffles his hair. _“And cut this goddamn mop already. You want someone to grab it? Makes it awfully easy to slit your throat.”_

“No, sir.”

Yondu nods. _“Now **get** …I’m busy. Gotta kill somebody.”_

Peter pounds his chest in salute and pivots away, racing toward the hanger. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do now, only that he as to fly away—far, far away from Earth and all the anguish its been yearning to share with him these last three years.

Behind him, he hears a sharp whistle.

The sound jerks him awake.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been out, waiting for the adults to finish their ‘discussion’ down the hall, but he somehow managed to tangle himself up in the covers of the bed in the corner of the room as he slept. The guard in the yellow jumpsuit advised him against touching anything, more so for hygienic purposes, but Peter had been too knackered and miserable to listen. Trying to pull off two shifts in a row was beginning to take its toll on him, so he’d kicked off his boots, curled up on top of the lumpy comforter, and promptly fell asleep.

He also doesn’t know if he really did hear a whistle just now or if his mind’s playing tricks on him. He’s tempted to go with the latter though when someone walks down the hall and the floorboard in front of the door cracks loud enough to startle him upright.

Then the doorknob rattles and Aleta walks in.

She takes one look at him and chuckles.

Peter untangles his arms from the quilt and tries to stroke his hair back into some semblance of order. It’s horribly knotted at the back, too painful to untangle with just his fingers, so he knows it's a losing battle until he can get his hands on a comb.

“Did you have a good nap?” Aleta asks, closing the door before wandering over to the desk on the other side of the room. She pulls out its chair and drags it over to the bed, straddling it backward. “You look kind of pale, kid.”

“I’m fine,” he mumbles, wiping the grit from his eyes. Kicking the rest of the quilt off, he scooches over to dangle his legs over the edge of the bed and says, “Did you guys finish your talk?”

“That we did,” she replies. “And now I’m here to answer your questions, if you have any.”

“Thank you,” he says softly. He hopes Aleta’s more straightforward than her husband, because the first question that comes out of his mouth is: “Why are you mad at Yondu?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t guessed already,” she sighs, as though she’s about to deliver him the worst news of his life. She visibly stiffens before she says, “We caught Yondu trafficking kids to someone on the other side of the galaxy. That’s why Yondu and his clan were exiled.”

Peter blinks in surprise. The impression he got from Kraglin and the other men was that he was the first child to live among them. They certainly grumbled enough about the changes they had to make to accommodate him in their lives.

There was also the unusual fact that Peter had never seen Yondu so much as interact with another child in the three years he’d been on the Eclector.

Didn’t slavers traders work on a tighter schedule than that?

Even so, Peter’s worried there could be a sliver of truth to what she’s saying. The fact that everyone on Stakar’s ship thought the captain saved Peter from some terrible fate made better sense in that context. So did Creneth’s comment about how blasphemous Peter’s jacket was…

But…Peter _knows_ Yondu. Sure, he’s a grade A asshole at times, but Peter knows the man put a lot of time and effort into training him to become a genuinely productive member of his crew. Seemed kind of like Yondu was making a long-term investment in Peter, to be honest.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Aleta continues. “Maybe Yondu wanted to keep you. I don’t know…but the fact that he continued to collect kids after we ordered him not to means he hasn’t learned his lesson. He’s a danger to other children in the galaxy, and that’s why we need to stop him.”

Faintly, Peter asks, “What are you going to do to him?”

“We’ve determined that we’ll let him decide. Given his options, he might choose death,” she glances at the floor for a moment, lost in thought. “I think he’ll choose death…” 

Peter can’t even begin to imagine what the alternatives must be. For Yondu to choose death over anything else, is…is…

Peter feels lightheaded.

He stands up, because he doesn’t know what else to do. This is all his fault. If he’d just kept out of sight, Stakar never would’ve seen him in that cave, and Peter could’ve gone on living his life in blissful ignorance.

“Oh,” Aleta says, suddenly rising from her seat. There’s a hazy transition from Peter standing upright to sitting next to her on the bed, one of her slender arms curled around his shoulders. “I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“I’m okay,” he says, secretly hoping she doesn’t remove her arm.

Thankfully, she doesn’t. In fact, she hugs him a little closer. “I think that’s enough about Yondu,” she says. “He’s not your problem anymore.”

That’s not entirely true. Peter can feel something warm and noisome coiling in his gut as he remembers the transmission he sent earlier.

He has no idea what he’s going to do about that. Part of him wants Yondu to come and set the record straight with the other Ravager clans, but now he’s worried there’s a possibility Yondu won’t survive the encounter. Stakar and his close companions seem like a pretty tough crowd.

Yet another part of him wonders if he really wants to see Yondu again at all.

“In any case, you have an important to decision to make now,” Aleta continues. “There are two Ravager factions that are both capable and willing to take you on as a member of their crew. One is lead by Krugarr, the red Lem you met in the other room. The other, as you can imagine, is Stakar.”

“ _Stakar_?” Peter asks incredulously. “He hates me.”

“No,” she sighs, like he’s tragically mistaken. Then she softly says, “He doesn’t hate you at all.”

He frowns at her in confusion.

A subtle sadness settles over Aleta’s features. She raises her other hand to brush Peter’s bangs out of his eyes and then gently smooths her fingers down the side of his face, as though acting on muscle memory.

Peter recognizes the gesture.

“Stakar was a father,” she murmurs. “Once.”

Quietly, Peter says, “You had a child together?”

“We had three,” she says. “Three very beautiful children…”

Peter feels something clench inside his chest.

Despite his disdain for Stakar, Peter thinks he better understands the man’s efforts to wrangle him into some semblance order now. There was also an unusal level of restraint Stakar exercised with him, because the man was certainly within his rights as a captain to deliver a thorough beating to the boy for his many displays of blatant disrespect. Or, at the very least, he could’ve threatened Peter with something more than simply the destruction of his jacket. Eating him alive had always been Yondu’s personal favorite.

In hindsight, Stakar’s method of dealing Peter had been relatively tame in comparison to what Peter knew a grown man was capable of doing to a child…

He doesn’t know if he has the right, but he snakes his arms around Aleta’s waist and gives her a hug anyway. He figures they both need it. “I’m sorry.”

“Why? You’ve done nothing wrong,” she replies, curling both of arms around him.

It feels so good to share this transient intimacy with another human being again, he almost doesn’t want to let go. His throat constricts and his eyes burn. “I haven’t done anything right either.”

“What are you talking about?” she squeezes him tightly against her body. There’s something poking his ribs. Probably a concealed weapon, but he doesn’t care.  “You’re too hard on yourself, kid. You’re not responsible for what’s going on between us and Yondu. Relax.”

He wishes it were that easy, but he tries anyway. Just takes one deep breath after the other, until he doesn’t feel like he’s going to bawl his eyes out in front of her anymore.

Slowly then, he pulls away. She still keeps an arm around looped around his shoulders, which he imagines is more for his sake than hers. He’s not sure.

She still looks a little sad and wistful herself.

After a moment, she decides they’re about ready to continue with their conversation. “I think you already know what to expect with Stakar, so I won’t bother going over his details. Krugarr, on the other hand, is unlike anyone you’ve ever met before, I guarantee.” She smiles a small smile. “He’s a sorcerer. Has a small crew of only 15 men, all of whom he’s personally taught to influence the natural energies of the universe. He’s also less of a profiteer… Mostly steals ancient artifacts for his work and sells the ones he doesn’t like.”

“He practices magic?” Peter asks, baffled.

“I guess you could call it that.” She shrugs. “He’s an odd one, but a good man. His kind of adventures come in waves, so you’ll be spending a lot of your downtime on the planet Earth. Krugarr trains his people at a monastery there.”

Peter stiffens.

The boundaries of his vision take on a hazy edge as a cold sweat breaks out on the back of his neck.

He’s beginning to feel lightheaded again.

“Yeah, middle of nowhere,” she chuckles, misinterpreting his reaction. “Most Terrans are ignorant of life on other planets. I wouldn’t advise socializing with them, if you can avoid it.”

As far as his travels in space have taken him, Peter’s surprised with how close fate has almost brought him back to Earth. Just thinking about his home planet fills him with an unspeakable sense of dread. ‘Ignorant’ is putting it lightly—everyone thought his mom was crazy about his dad. They all ridiculed her behind her back until they found out she had a brain tumor, even her own family.

Terrans were such cruel and stupid beings.

Joining Krugarr’s crew would be a complete 180 from his current way of life and would inevitably take him back to that godforsaken planet. His only alternative, however, was Stakar…

Peter couldn’t believe Stakar wanted to keep him around. The man was forceful and condescending and just an all-around _jerk_ , but then…so were most fathers at some time or another, he supposes. His old school buddies used to complain a lot about their dads but they praised them in equal measure too, which meant Stakar might similarly be capable of kinder words and actions. Peter really hasn’t been with the man long enough to know for sure. They’ve barely had a civil conversation since they met, although Stakar’s crew certainly liked him.

There’s also the fact that Aleta hasn’t warned Peter against staying with her ex-husband yet.

He feels like that speaks volumes.

“You don’t have to decide right now, if you don’t want to,” Aleta says, giving his shoulder a comfortable squeeze.

Peter shakes his head. Neither option is ideal, but he’s a survivor. He’ll make do with what he’s got.

Just the way Yondu taught him.

It takes him a second compose himself. His mouth is dry, but he somehow manages to say, “I’ll stay with Stakar, if he’ll have me.”

She squeezes him again. “Are you sure? Once you consent to joining a crew, there’s no backing out…Do you perhaps want to meet with Krugarr first?”

He shakes his head again. Maybe someday, when he’s old enough, he’ll desert Stakar and try to strike out on his own in the universe.

Or maybe he’ll grow to like Stakar the way he did Yondu.

Only time will tell.

“I’m sure.”

She grins. “If it’s worth anything, I think you made the right decision. Stakar’s not such a bad guy once you get to know him.”

“You still like him?” Peter asks, somewhat amazed by her attitude.

“Don’t ask me why, but yeah…” she reaches into one of the pouches on her utility belt and takes out a small stone about the size of a quarter. It’s dark green and opaque, its jagged surface glittering brilliantly in the dim light from the grimy little window above the bed. Peter recognizes it as one of the gems from the tomb. “And I suspect he still likes me too, otherwise he wouldn’t bother bringing me little gifts anymore…He’s a sentimental old fool. You’ll see.”

Aleta admires the stone in silence for a moment, before she pockets it again and rises from her seat. She makes her way over to the door and opens it, leaning out into the hall. “Tell Stakar he’s keeping the kid!” she hollers.

Faintly, Peter can hear an unfamiliar voice cry _‘what?!’_ in utter indignation a few rooms over before the sound of heavy footsteps makes its way steadily down the hall. Aleta stands aside to permit Stakar into the room. A puzzled, though not displeased, look crosses the man’s face. “Is that right?” he asks Peter, giving the kid a quick once-over.

Peter’s heart hammers against his ribs. He’s not ready for another wave of change so suddenly after the first major upheaval in his life, but…if he somehow managed to get along with one alien crew, he can sure as hell do it again.

At least until the universe throws another curveball at him.

Finally, he takes a deep breath and rises from his seat.

Thumping his chest once in salute, he says, “Yes, Captain.”

~*~*~*~

Stakar’s dumbfounded.

He thought for sure he would lose.

He glances back at Aleta to ask her what kind of witchcraft she’s been getting into lately, but she’s already disappeared from the room. It’s just him and the kid now. Exactly like he wanted…

That strange _something_ flutters inside his chest again, but he realizes now that it’s not a bad thing. It’s nerves, is what it is, something he’s unfamiliar with. It’s been a long time since he was responsible for someone so young, and he doesn’t want to screw it up again.

He couldn’t live with himself if he did.

“Good,” he murmurs, shifting his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. He thinks he’s still in shock. John hates him. This might very well be another one of his jokes.

But John doesn’t look like he’s joking. In fact, he looks very solemn, like he’s given this decision serious thought.

Even so, Stakar has to ask: “Are you sure?”

John gives him a quizzical look and says, “Yes, sir.”

“…You can relax with the formalities,” Stakar replies. It feels weird having a nine-year-old address him so. “I don’t know how Yondu operates on his ship, but it’s only ‘ _Captain_ ’ or ‘ _sir_ ’ the first time you address me in a conversation or if you’re confirming an order.”

“Okay,” John says, eyeing Stakar warily, like he can hardly believe his own decision. He doesn’t back-peddle though, which is a good sign. The kid’s got conviction.

“I guess we should give you a chance to stretch your legs, huh?” Stakar offers, not entirely sure what to do now. They’ve got a day of downtime before they have to head off to begin the hunt. He should probably use this chance to get on a better level with the boy. “This planet isn’t exactly kid-friendly, but there’s a couple of places I could show you.”

“Sure,” the boy replies, stroking the knotted bangs back from his face. He frowns suddenly.

Stakar blinks. “What’s the matter?”

John sighs, as though there’s a peculiar burden on his soul. Then he quietly says, “I need to get a haircut.”

Stakar blinks again.

And then he laughs. John doesn’t laugh with him, of course, but that’s because the boy doesn’t realize he’s the first kid Stakar’s ever encountered that _wanted_ to get a haircut.

Once he’s composed himself again, Stakar leads the boy downstairs and waves the bartender aside to see what they can do about his little problem. The man ends up pointing them in the direction of a small clinic for minor medical emergencies about a block away, where one of the technicians, a surprisingly young Krylorian girl, fuses over the boy as though he’s the cutest thing she’s ever seen. She cuts John’s hair short on the sides but leaves it a little longer on top to preserve a bit of his natural wave, and then makes the bizarre request of keeping the free strands as payment. John gives her an odd look, but nods his assent, then hops off the counter when she starts inquiring into any loose teeth he might have for sale.

As they’re making their way out the door, John squints up at Stakar in confusion. “What do people do with teeth?”

“There’s a bunch of old homeopathic remedies people think they can make with child by-products,” he replies as they make their way down the street. There’s a market not too far from here where maybe he can find a way to entertain the kid. “That’s why she was happy to keep your hair in compensation for the cut.”

John runs his hand through the shorter strands. Combined with the blue leather jacket, he’s finally got the clean look sported by most members of Stakar’s crew. Looks less like a wild thing.

More like a regular child playing at being a grown up.

“Don’t ever go wandering around on your own, okay?” Stakar says suddenly, glancing at the lowlifes hanging around the shops. Nobody pays them any heed, but Stakar knows a kid like John would fetch a fair price in a slaver’s market. “People grab kids and harvest them for the dumbest reasons. I’m not joking.”

“Okay,” John murmurs, as though he’s heard this story before. After a beat, he says, “Aleta told me Yondu was selling kids to a guy on the other side of the galaxy. Is that what he does? He harvests them?”

“I don’t know,” Stakar replies, and he’s not sure he ever wants to.

John trails quietly alongside Stakar for a minute before he says, “Can I ask a personal question?”

“A personal question?” Stakar doesn’t know why the boy would be interested in knowing the finer details of his life, but he’s willing to humor him all the same. Anything to keep him talking, really, because John’s stormy silence the last few days was starting to worry him.  “Only if I get to ask one in return.”

John nods. “Okay, well…Aleta said you had kids. What happened to them?”

Stakar almost misses a step. Feels kind of winded by the question, honestly, but it’s an innocent enough inquiry.

It takes Stakar a while to figure out how he’s going to answer the boy, but he eventually decides on the plain and simple truth: “They died a really long time ago.”

John glances up at him again, brows furrowed with something like sympathy or grief. But there’s another important question shining in his eyes now, one which makes Stakar’s stomach turn:

_How?_

“It’s complicated,” Stakar says, although not really. He just doesn’t like talking about it because thinking about his kids opens that gaping hole in his heart again, the one he sometimes tries to fill up with alcohol or death-defying feats of supreme stupidity.

All the same, John’s silence is persistence. Stakar supposes maybe it would help in the long run if the boy realized why children were such a sore spot for him, so he says, “Aleta and I were away on a mission once, and an old enemy took the opportunity to kill them. If I hadn’t talked her into leaving, she would’ve been there to protect them. Hell— _I_ should’ve been there to protect them...That’s why I can’t just stand by and let Yondu do this to you or any other kids. I’ve failed too many children in my lifetime already.”

John’s still silent, but this time he’s looking down at the ground ahead of them as they walk, as though contemplating something. Eventually, he says, “She still likes you.”

“What?” Stakar asks, confused.

“Aleta,” John clarifies. “You should talk to her. I think she misses you.”

“We get along alright,” Stakar grumbles. It’s true that he’s noticed the way she’s softened a little toward him again over the years, but that could just as easily be fatigue. He figures there must be a point where a person’s anger and hatred gives way to the dull ache of apathy, just enough so that both parties can move on with their lives.

John shakes his head, as though there’s something Stakar just doesn’t quite understand.

“My turn,” Stakar says, clearing his throat. “How’d you lose your mother?”

John stiffens beside him. Despite what the boy probably thinks, Stakar isn’t trying to be cruel here. He just knows many of the kids Yondu collected over the years quite often lost their mothers, and lately he’s been wondering if maybe Yondu was the one who put them out of their misery.

He dreads the thought of that being the truth.

But he needs to know.

“She had a brain tumor,” John finally mumbles, kicking up a bit of snow with his next step.

“A what?” Stakar asks.

“It’s when a bad cell starts to grow out of control and kills off all the good cells around it,” the boy explains, a careful recitation of something he’s no doubt heard before. “But it was in her brain, so the doctors couldn’t get it out…The bad cell won.”

“That’s tough,” Stakar mutters sympathetically. Sounded like some kind of cancer, but most worlds offered an effective array of therapies for that. ‘Misery’ must’ve been out in the middle of nowhere, wallowing in a primitive state of medical research and technology. “Is that why you like Yondu so much? Because he’s been taking care of you?”

John snorts at thought. “Yondu ain’t my daddy.”

Stakar chuckles. Yondu isn’t exactly parent material and Stakar doubts that will ever change.

The man just doesn’t give a damn about anyone other than himself.

“Then why do you like him?” Stakar asks.

John shrugs. “I don’t know…He teaches me stuff. Or makes Kraglin if he’s busy.”

“Like what?”

“Like flying!” John suddenly exclaims, as though he had almost forgotten the joy that peculiar hobby once gave him. “God, I _love_ flying…I don’t know how to Jump yet, but Yondu says that’s so I don’t accidentally end up somewhere dangerous.”

“Really?” Stakar asks, a little stunned. Maybe the boy was wrong. Maybe he just sat in the co-pilot’s seat while the primary pilot did all the heavy lifting. “You’ll have to show me some time…”

“I could,” the boy replies defensively, like he’s aware that a child flying a spacecraft sounds kind of ludicrous. “Your controls are the same. Except for that extra panel on the left armrest.”

“That’s a newer part of the ship’s weaponry,” he explains, admittedly surprised with the boy’s observation. “If the crew’s in a pinch, the pilot can lock a volley of missiles onto their opponent. But it’s a one-hit-wonder kind of mechanism, only to be used as a last resort.”

“Cool,” John breathes.

“Well, yeah,” he replies. “They’re each propelled by a cryogenic rocket engine. Otherwise they wouldn’t fly in space.”

“That’s not what I meant,” John sighs. “But okay.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“You know—slang?” John waves a hand vaguely through the air. “Like ‘gnarly’ or ‘jhytkel’ or “ftrualy’ or—”

“Slow down,” Stakar says, pulling them up short in the middle of the street. His translator isn’t picking up half of what the kid’s saying. “Your native language probably hasn’t been updated in the universal system in ages.”

“Oh. That would explain a lot…”

“What kind of place is Misery, anyway?” he asks. He’s hoping that he knows the place by another name, because it would make the task of raising the boy a hell of a lot easier if Stakar could figure out what kind of culture he came from.

John shrugs. “I don’t know. Boring? People don’t know a lot about space. Everything is practically _ancient_ back there—except my Walkman.” The boy smiles faintly. “It’s the greatest invention ever.”

“You’re really attached to that thing,” Stakar remarks, starting down the street again, shortening his gait so the kid doesn’t have to struggle to keep up.

“My mom put her favorite songs on a tape for me,” the boy replies. “I used to listen to them all the time.”

“You can probably tune one of the radios aboard the Starhawk to a music station,” Stakar suggests. “They might not play anything from your world, but it’s better than nothing.”

The boy nods, although he looks a little sad.

Stakar clears his throat. “So…how exactly did Yondu handle having a kid aboard his ship? Did he just throw you in with the rest of the crew?”

John shakes his head. “He cleared out a storage closet and dragged a cot in there for me. Then he put a bolt on the door.”

Letting the kid have a room to himself didn’t sound like a bad idea, but the bolt was kind of overkill…maybe. John was, after all, quite the handful. The kind of people that tended to join Yondu’s crew probably weren’t interested in monitoring a kid all hours of a cycle.

“So, he locked you in at night?” Stakar inquires.

John gives him a weird look. “It was bolted on the _inside_. Why would he lock me in a closet?”

“Have you met yourself?” he quips.

For once, John seems to appreciate his joke. The kid grins and shrugs, like he can understand where Stakar’s coming from. “I liked being difficult for him too,” he admits quietly. “Not a lot, ’cause he’s scary when he’s angry, but sometimes he seemed kinda amused.”

“I know what you mean. He had a wild sense of humor when I knew him.”

“How _did_ you know him?” the boy asks. “Did he hang out with you guys before he was exiled?”

For a moment, Stakar wonders how much he should divulge of their checkered past. The history of their little group was quite complicated. He had plenty of good stories to tell.

And plenty of bad ones too.

Eventually, he comes to the conclusion that there’s no point in keeping Yondu’s secrets anymore since they’re no longer close confidants or friends. So he shrugs and says, “You know everyone you met today in the bar? Back when we were amassing our own Ravager factions, we’d go out on group missions together. We picked Yondu up from the Kree one day while we were screwing around on some backwater planet. He joined my crew shortly after.”

“Yondu was with the _Kree_?” the kid asks incredulously. “But he _hates_ the Kree.”

Stakar laughs weakly. “With good reason. His parents sold him to them when he was barely old enough to walk. He was one of their warrior slaves for close to twenty years.”

Stakar could still remember the day he met the man, running through the thick foliage to his ship, hot on Aleta’s tail. He’d heard a whistle in the distance and then something cutting through the long grass behind him, propelling himself forward just in time to knock his wife to the ground as Yondu’s yaka arrow soared overhead. Stakar rolled aside immediately, keeping his head down as Aleta sat up and flung one of her daggers at their pursuer, catching the Centaurian in the shoulder.

Somehow that hadn’t been enough to slow Yondu, but when Charlie came barreling out of the underbrush to tackle him, that had somehow done the trick. Knocked him clear out, right then and there, probably because the man had recently been concussed by someone else. Then they’d all seen the collar and the whip marks and unanimously made the decision to drag the unconscious blue bastard aboard their M-ship before hot-footing it the hell off that planet.

For some reason, Stakar’s chest aches a little just thinking about it.

“He stuck with me for about three years before I sent him off with his own crew,” Stakar continues. “Gave him Tullk and Kraglin to help him get started, much to my regret.”

“Why?” John asks.

“They were both good Ravagers. I thought they’d have the sense to leave Yondu once things turned sour.”

The boy shakes his head. “I mean, why did you give him a crew?”

The question catches him by surprise. “Well…that’s what you do when someone’s got potential. You nurture it, especially if you happen to like them at the time. They’ll usually help you in the long run if you do.”

“You like Yondu?” John asks, although he says it in such a way that it sounds less like a question and more like he’s trying to make a point.

Stakar slows to a halt again. “ _Liked_ ,” he corrects, turning to face the kid. “And not a hell of a lot…I’m hoping you don’t believe he’s innocent in all of this. Aleta said she was going to lay it to you straight.”

“She told me what you all think he did,” the boy replies, “But I want to hear it from him too.”

Stakar plants his hands on his hips and sighs.

Every time he thinks he’s made a little headway with the kid, John lets his obstinacy shine on through with the blinding brilliance of a thousand suns.

Stakar’s beginning to wonder if Yondu didn’t hypnotize the boy the second he got his grimy hands on him.

“You’re not going back to him,” Stakar says. “You’re wearing the colors of Ogord of your own volition now.”

“I know.” John tilts his chin up at Stakar, the proud little whelp. It’s hard not to see a little of Yondu’s insolence mirrored in his posture. “But my mom used to say every man has the right to be heard. So, I’m gonna listen.”

“That’s not a bad principle to have,” Stakar admits, “but that all depends on whether Yondu’s planning to come peacefully. If he tries to kill me, I’m going to defend myself.”

“Fine,” the boy says, as though he’s can live with that. “But if you manage to catch him, I wanna talk to him.”

“Fine,” Stakar echoes, although with a greater sense of finality. “But I can’t make any promises on what kind of state he’ll be in when you do. If he wants a fight, he’s gonna get it.”

John’s obviously feels as though he’s already said his bit on the matter, because then he decisively glances down the street and says, “Where are we going?”

“The market.”

“Maybe we should just head back.”

“Why?” Stakar grunts. “So you can hole yourself up in a room and stew for the rest of the day?” He starts down the street once more. “You need the fresh air. It’ll clear your head.”

John makes a very distinct sound of annoyance at the back of his throat, but he follows along as commanded, hands stuffed into his pockets, radiating the same level of irritation Stakar once thought only Aleta was capable of.

Stakar shakes his head.

Eventually, they make it to the market. It’s nothing extravagant, but for some reason it does the trick of mellowing out the boy’s mood. He stares in silent wander at the collection of random wares and bric-a-brac as though it were genuine treasure. A few pieces of the jewelry that Stakar sees could very well be, but everyone knows the _real_ goods are sold behind the scenes, either in darkened alleyways or the more heavily guarded establishments. This is just were the more modest locals set up shop, the ones trying to make an honest living.

In the midst of watching a woman attempt to sell a bolt of shimmering blue fabric to a potential customer, Stakar hears something behind them that sends his nerves on edge.

A fight has erupted between seven or eight men. Altogether they look like a rather unsavory bunch, so Stakar has no interest whatsoever in intervening on anyone’s behalf, but they’re making no effort to contain themselves. One guy tosses a poorly aimed dagger haphazardly at his opponent, but it falls short of his target and skids across a patch of ice into the gutter, effectively relieving himself of a perfectly good weapon.

Stakar wonders if any of them really know how to fight.

Just as he’s about to steer John away from the mayhem, one of the assholes stumbles backward and takes the kid down with him. Predictably, John jabs at him with his knees and elbows until the man rolls away.

Stakar figures that’s the end of that, but, seemingly unappreciative of the boy’s attitude, the man makes the colossal mistake of taking one look at John and slapping him hard across the face.

John goes limp upon impact.

Stakar’s moving before he knows what he’s doing. He reaches down to grab a fistful of the man’s hair and yanks him to his feet, holding him up at eye level before planting his fist square between the eyes.

Stakar relishes the way the man’s nose crumples under his knuckles. He also rather enjoys the gush of green blood that explodes against his leather glove.

It reminds him of the good old days.

The man howls in agony and stumbles back a step, drawing the attention of his comrades. Several sets of eyes suddenly set themselves upon Stakar with a primal hunger, all too ready to draw another unfortunate sod into the chaos—but then they see the blue leather and the golden bands, and Stakar can almost physically _see_ the wave of comprehension that washes over them simultaneously as they finally realize who the uniform belongs to.

He’s still got a yearning for a little old-fashioned violence, but the fight goes out of them almost immediately. They scamper away like the cowards they are, so he takes a step forward—

—only to find himself halted by a small hand against his knee.

His initial reaction is to shake it off, but somehow his brain catches up with him in time to remind him that said hand belongs to John. So instead he takes a deep breath and waits a second for his rage to dissipate before he crouches down in front of the boy.

“Are you okay?” he asks, eyeing the red mark blossoming on the side of John’s face. The way the boy’s holding his other hand across his mouth is a little disconcerting. “Did he knock a tooth loose?”

John’s squints in pain, but shakes his head. He pulls his hand away from his mouth and says, “Bit my cheek,” before spitting in the snow beside him.

Stakar stares at the vibrant red droplets. He doesn’t know why he finds the sight of it is so bizarre until he realizes that it isn’t blue.

John’s people are definitely not related to the Xandarians.

There are plenty of species in the universe that bleed red, but the sight of it stirs a long-forgotten memory. He still can’t fully grasp it, but Stakar feels like an important part of some nebulous puzzle just fell into place.

John probes gingerly at the inside of his cheek with his tongue before spitting again. Then he looks at Stakar and asks, “What’s your policy on thieving?”

It’s such a non-sequitur to his current train of thought that it takes Stakar a while to come up with an answer. “You mean on a petty level? It’s fine, I guess. Why?”

John reaches between his legs and holds up a small, tightly wound bundle of cloth. He unravels it gently to reveal a few metal units. 

Stakar is stunned speechless.

John quietly counts the units under his breath before holding out a few to him.

Stakar doesn’t make any motion to take them. “What’s this?”

“10%?” the boy replies, like it should be obvious.

“That rule only applies to large-scale solo jobs, not pick-pocketing,” He gently pushes the boy’s hand away. “Did you have to pay Yondu a cut for petty theft?”

“No. Just checking.” The boy shoves the units into one of his jacket pockets, then folds the cloth up and stuffs it into the other.

Stakar rises to his feet and offers the kid a hand, pulling the little guy upright. “I’ll admit, that was impressive.”

The boy shrugs, like it’s no big deal. “It’s my speciality.”

“Then maybe try not to get slapped next time,” Stakar chuckles, brushing the snow off the boy’s shoulders and hair.

John rubs his rosy cheek and winces before wandering further into the market. Stakar follows just one step behind, watching John explore the stalls with an open kind of wonder and naivety that are almost uncharacteristic of the boy he first met two cycles ago.

Maybe, Stakar thinks, some of the boy’s innocence is still salvageable after all.

They spend a good part of the day in the market, stopping once to eat a couple of small meat pies before retracing their steps to the _Dwarf Star_. He can already tell with a glance at the small docking yard that Charlie’s and Mainframe’s ships are gone, which means only Krugarr and Aleta are still hanging around. In fact, he finds them sitting at the bar inside, huddled conspicuously close together, discussing something just below the volume of the rest of the room.

“Speak of the devil,” Krugarr shouts over the din as soon as he catches sight of them. There’s a loaded pause as he glances down at the boy before he asks, “What happened to the kid?”

Stakar glances back over his shoulder at his newest recruit. John, who’d been poking the inside of his cheek again with his tongue, quickly pulls a straight face. “…What?”

“Did you lose a tooth?” Aleta asks, brows furrowed in concern.

“No,” he says. Then he smiles. “But Captain punched a guy and I stole his units.”

Both Krugarr and Aleta give Stakar a questionable look.

“Well…” he begins.

Thankfully, Martinex chooses that moment to materialize beside them. He eyes the kid too, but for a different reason. “You got a haircut?”

John runs his fingers through the wavy strands on top of his head. “Yeah... I needed a change.”

“Change is good,” Martinex offers hopefully before turning his attention over to Stakar. “Should we head back up now? Or are you staying down here the night?”

John blinks up at them in alarm. “We’re leaving already?”

“Trust me,” Stakar says, “You don’t want to sleep down here. At least, not until you’re old enough to stay in one of the more tantalizing establishments.”

John frowns, no doubt a witty remark primed on the tip of his tongue as he opens his mouth. But after a moment of careful consideration, he shuts it again.

Stakar doesn’t know why the kid would want to sleep anywhere on this godforsaken place, but just as he’s about to ask, Aleta brushes her fingers covertly against the back of Stakar’s hand.

He steals a quick glance in her direction and then turns back to Martinex. “You head on up. I’ll follow later.”

“I’ll come with you,” Krugarr chirps pleasantly.

“What?” Stakar asks, but already the Lem is slithering around him to follow his first mate to the door.

Aleta grabs him gently by the arm when he starts after them himself. “He just wants to try a mind exercise with the boy,” she explains.

“Why?”

Aleta takes a quick survey of the rowdy men crowded around them and then nods her head at the stairs behind the bar. Stakar sighs in exasperation but follows her up into one of the old bedrooms anyway, closing the door behind him to muffle out some of the noise. The covers on the bed in the corner are still rumpled from earlier in the day.

Aleta seems to take notice of that as well, staring at the bed for a moment before she turns back to him. “Krugarr says there’s a mark on the John’s aura. He could feel the terror radiating from the boy when he was sleeping.”

“Is that really so surprising?” Stakar sighs, thinking back to his discussion with the boy. “His mother died a rather long and agonizing death. Then he was abducted by Yondu’s crew. Of course, he’s suffering.” 

“So, you don’t mind that Krugarr’s invited himself aboard your ship for the next few cycles?”

Stakar arches an eyebrow at her. The audacity of their mutual friend honestly surprised him at times, but then, Krugarr wasn’t without his wisdom. “It would’ve been nice if he’d _asked_ first, but no, I don’t mind. The kid can use all the help he can get.”

The corner of Aleta’s lips curl in a familiar way.

He squints at her. “What’s so funny?”

“You just spent the whole day alone with a small child.” She licks her lips, fighting back the smile. “And you had quite the adventure with him, by the sounds of it…”

With a snort, he wanders over to the desk and leans back against it. The old wood creaks under his weight. “Not really. I took him to get his haircut and then we explored the market for a bit.”

“Then when did you find the time to punch someone?”

“Oh, you know me,” he rumbles. “Trouble follows me wherever I go.”

“Ain’t it the truth.” She braces her hands against her hips and leans back gently, easing out the kinks in her shoulders and spine. He knows she just doing it to stall for time, choosing her next words carefully. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’re a different man nowadays. I know the change has been gradual, but I didn’t think much of it until this incident with the boy came up...”

Something heavy and warm flops over in his gut. Feels kind of like nerves again.

Stakar glances down at the wooden floorboards, eyeing all the splinters and chips and the remarkably dark stain next to Aleta’s right foot. His chest feels a little swollen all of a sudden, like its been puffed up with grief and guilt and longing…

But maybe there’s some hope mixed up in there as well.

When he looks up at Aleta again, he asks, “Is it a good kind of change?”

Slowly, she smiles.

His discussion with the boy suddenly forces its way to the forefront of his mind. He swallows thickly. It might be wishful thinking, but he doesn’t see an ounce of anger in her eyes anymore. Aleta just looks like she’s reached the end of a long and weary journey, one she’s finally glad to be over.

Stakar pushes himself up off the desk and slowly makes his way across the room until he’s standing before her. The whole world’s gone silent but for the sound of her breath passing gently between her lips and the blood rushing in his ears.

He reaches up to grab her by the arms just below the shoulders and gives them a gentle squeeze.

Quietly, and with great strength, he finally says, “I miss you.”

She smiles a little harder and leans into him.

Tensing, he pushes her away.

He takes about a half step back as he does, which is the only reason the arrow whizzes between them after it pierces through the door and not through either of their heads. Naturally, the devilish thing corrects its course, pivoting sharply before it hits the far wall. It glows with red malevolence as it readjusts its pointed tip toward Stakar.

Thankfully, Aleta’s reaction time is the stuff of legends. She doesn’t miss a beat as she unsheathes one of her draggers, batting the arrow down with her blade as it darts toward him. It hits the floor with a solid _thunk_ , but they both know she’s barely dented it. It just lies there for a moment before wriggling excitedly between their feet as Yondu’s whistle rises faintly above the unnatural silence of the bar downstairs.

Stakar slams his foot down on top of it just as it’s about to take off again.

He and Aleta share a look.

It’s showtime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: For those of you who haven't googled Stakar's and Aleta's history yet, their kids were killed off at a very young age by Aleta's father.
> 
> Their names were Tara, Sita, and John.


	6. It cuts both ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It's showtime...

Peter complains all the way to the transporter.

But Martinex’s a hard nut to crack. He doesn’t respond as he hustles Peter off to one side of the ramp, out of the way of the men loading the ship with several crates of fresh rations. Krugarr decides to join them, although Peter doesn’t know why, drifting over the snow behind them in such a way that he doesn’t leave a trail in his wake.

Peter would almost be impressed if he didn’t find it so creepy.

“There’s really nothing for a boy your age to do on Contraxia,” Krugarr explains as soon as he catches up to them. Peter’s still trying to figure out where his voice is coming from, given that the man doesn’t have a mouth. “Once we get back to the ship, I’ll show you something _truly_ amazing. Trust me, you’ll love it.”

Martinex side-eyes him warily.

“Nothing destructive,” Krugarr snorts. “You have my word.”

“You said that last time,” Martinex grumbles.

“If it’s destructive,” Peter says, “maybe I should stay down here?”

“ _No_.”

“Maybe he isn’t attracted to the idea of being on Contraxia so much as he’s dreading the thought of returning to the Starhawk?” Krugarr says. “Stakar runs his ship like the Nova Corps, if I recall correctly.”

“I think what you mean to say is that he runs it ‘ _efficiently_ ’.”

Krugarr waves his hand dismissively. “Yes, well, if the boy had chosen _me_ , we’d be halfway to the Ancient One by now.” The Lem slowly coils his tail against the ground, lowering himself to Peter’s eye level. “Do you know what magic is? It’s such a _marvelous_ thing.”

“You mean like card tricks?” Peter asks, baffled.

The question earns him a hearty laugh. “Oh, what I do is much _more_ than simple parlor tricks.” Krugarr raises his hands between them, palms facing Peter. “Let me show you…”

Slowly then he begins to wave them in a circle, one over the other. Peter quirks an eyebrow at him, but decides to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Suddenly, the air ripples between them.

It looks like a heatwave at first, but then a spark of red light appears between Krugarr’s rotating hands. It forms a large and intricate circle that slowly expands outward, a series of tight loops and knots carefully woven together to create a most unusual frame around the Lem’s face.

Fascinated, Peter’s almost tempted to reach out and touch it.

“It’s called a mandala,” Krugarr explains. “I can show you how to make one, if you’d like.”

“What does it do?” Peter asks.

“Oh, just about _everything_.”

Peter whistles appreciatively.

“I knew you’d like it,” Krugarr chirps excitedly. He drops his hands and the circle dissipates as though it had never existed at all. “It requires careful meditation to generate, but I could teach you. Opening the mind is not such a difficult task once you learn how to focus.”

“ _Just_ through meditation?”

“I know it sounds odd, but meditation is more important than you think. My mentor can shift between the planes of consciousness almost as easily as breathing.” He chuckles then, as though there’s some private joke buried in that statement. “The Ancient One operates out on Earth, far from the greater chaos of the universe. I think you would like it there.”

“We’re not going to Earth,” Martinex mutters, clearly trying to steer the Lem away from making any promises he’s in no position to fulfill.

Krugarr doesn’t say anything.

In fact, he doesn’t even move beyond titling his head every so slightly to the left, staring at Peter in a way that’s beginning to make him nervous. After a considerable pause, Krugarr says, “‘ _Earth_ ’.”

Peter’s heart skips a beat.

“I heard you the first time,” Martinex replies, leaning forward to get a better look at his companion’s face. After a moment, he asks, “What are you doing?”

“You don’t see it,” Krugarr says. He extends his right hand slowly toward Peter, pointer finger aimed between the eyes. Peter leans his head back to avoid him. “But I do...”

He slowly draws his finger downward. He refrains from actually touching the boy, but Peter can still feel _something_ unzipping in his mind, his throat, his chest—a frozen point that cuts him to the core, exposing him in a way he never thought possible.

Terrified, Peter takes a step back. “Stop that!”

“Krugarr,” Martinex warns. “You’re scaring him.”

“There’s a black streak originating from _here_ ,” the man replies, pointing to Peter’s heart. “It quivers whenever someone says ‘ _Earth_ ’.”

Peter feels it too this time, a sharp jab in his chest.

Hand trembling, he reaches up to rub the sore spot.

“And now you’re hurting him,” Martinex snaps, slapping his companion’s arm away. “What is wrong with you?”

Krugarr slaps the man’s hand back in retaliation. The gesture catches the attention of the men loading up the ship. “I’m trying to _heal_ him, you moron. The source of his agony begins and ends with Earth. I’ll bet you anything that’s where he came from.”

“No!” Peter snaps, more of a knee-jerk reaction than anything else.

Martinex freezes. As realization dawns on him, he says, “Is that true?”

Peter glances between him and the Lem.

Then he turns tail and bolts, short legs pumping, half-slipping at one point on a patch of black ice buried under the snow.

Because it’s so cold outside, there are fewer people in the docking yard for him to dodge around, meaning Martinex just has to run in a straight line to catch up to him. Which he does in no time at all, skidding to his knees as he tackles Peter from behind so that the boy falls into his lap and not on the hard ground.

“Calm down!” the man exclaims, fighting to pin Peter’s arms against his sides. “It’s okay!”

“ _I’m not okay_!” Peter snaps, hot tears rolling down his face. He continues kicking and flailing for a while longer, but Martinex simply holds him, waiting out the storm. And eventually he wins, because Peter knows the gig is up.

Exhausted, he turns his face into Martinex’s chest and openly cries.

Gradually, Martinex relaxes his hold. He raises a hand to cup the side of Peter’s head, tucking it under his chin.

“I can’t go back,” Peter sobs. In his mind’s eye he can see that grey world rotating, trapped somewhere in that delicate margin between life and death.

Peter doesn’t want return to the place where the worms are eating away at the only person he ever loved.

“We won’t make you,” Martinex says softly. “Not if you don’t want to.”

“I d-don’t.”

“Is that why you didn’t tell us sooner? You thought we would return you to Earth?”

It’s more complicated than that, but Peter nods his head against Martinex’s chest.

There’s a long pause as Martinex continues to hold his shuddering body. Then he quietly asks. “How long ago did Yondu pick you up? In Earth years, I mean.”

Peter raises a hand to wipe his cheeks, mildly embarrassed by his own panic attack. He’d thought he’d gotten over those crying fits of his. “Three, I think?”

Another poignant pause.

Suddenly, Peter hears someone running through the snow. Not a moment later, a man in a blue jumpsuit darts past them, heading away from the transporter.

“Hold up!” Martinex shouts as another two men run by. “What’s going on?”

One of the men slows to a jog, glancing back over his shoulder at the first mate. “We just got a call. Udonta’s crew is holding up the _Dwarf Star_.”

Both Peter and Martinex immediately struggle to their feet. Peter’s heart is pounding in his chest.

Yondu came for him.

Krugarr appears at their side again, snatching Peter’s hand up before the boy can flinch away. “Should I take him to the Starhawk?”

“Yeah,” Martinex says. He gives Peter’s shoulder a squeeze. “Krugarr’s going to keep you safe.”

“But—”

“Please?” he begs. “Behave for Krugarr.”

Peter opens his mouth to protest, but already the man is off, sprinting to catch up with his crew. Krugarr, meanwhile, begins rotating his free arm in front of them, sparks dancing at his fingertips.

“…What are you doing?” Peter asks warily.

“Behold,” the man says faintly. The sparks gather themselves into yet another intricate circle, except this time Peter doesn’t see snow on the other side of the mandala when it expands.

He sees the main hanger of Stakar’s ship.

Stunned, Peter doesn’t have time to react as Krugarr tugs him forward, practically throwing them through the portal. Peter lands unsteadily on his feet on the other side and then whips his head around to watch as the portal shrinks behind them, popping out of existence with an almost comical fizzle.

Peter yanks his hand out of Krugarr’s. “We have to go back!”

“It’s not safe for you down there.”

“Really?” Peter snaps. “ ’cause there ain’t nobody down there who wants to hurt me!”

Krugarr shakes his head. “All it takes is one stray shot. How do you think they would feel if you were killed?”

Peter doesn’t have an answer to that.

“That’s what I thought,” Krugarr murmurs, glancing around the hanger. It’s surprisingly empty, but Peter supposes that’s because most of the crew was already down on Contraxia. Only a skeleton crew was left behind to keep everything in order. “Feels kind of… _raw_ in here, doesn’t it?”

“What?”

The Lem slither gracefully across the floor to one of the nearest M-ships, a few of its outer panels still warped out of shape. Someone had been in the process of replacing them.

“They fought the Kree a while ago,” Peter supplies as Krugarr extends himself upward to touch the broken wing.

“They lost quite a few people,” Krugarr says faintly, almost as though he were simply voicing his thoughts. “The essence of death is quite potent.”

Peter rolls his eyes and pivots away on his heel.

“Where are you going?”

“Med Bay,” Peter says, although he doesn’t actually know. He just wants to go someplace he can sit and think in peace. “That’s where Stakar’s been keeping me.”

“Maybe stick to the mess hall instead,” Krugarr calls after him. “Depending on how the fight goes, they’ll be needing the Med Bay soon enough.”

Peter resists the urge to roll his eyes a second time and marches across the hanger to the main exit.

Wherever he goes, it sure as heck won’t be the mess hall…

But he ends up there anyway, because that’s really the only other place he knows of besides Stakar’s quarters and the showers.

He arrives to find that the lights are off inside, probably because the kitchen reduced the meal hours in favor of the staff getting a planet-side break. Not a problem, he thinks, as he props open one of the doors with a chair and flips the switch on the wall beside it. However, the darkness persists.

He flips it back off and on again.

At the far end of the room, one of the lights sparks above the food counter and explodes, tiny pieces of glass raining down onto the floor.

Peter flinches.

The light from the hall only illuminates a narrow strip of the room, but he sees nothing out of the ordinary. Even so, wary of the unusual darkness, Peter decides then and there that this might not be a bad time to regroup with Krugarr. But as he takes his first step, he hears an odd squelching noise underfoot of something thick and sticky and _wet_ …

He squints down at the floor and realizes there’s a dark puddle pooling out from under one of the tables.

Peter inhales sharply.

Three years on a Ravager ship has taught him well enough by now how to recognize the stench of fresh blood.

~*~*~*~

Raising Peter hadn’t been easy.

He was loud and obnoxious and about as wholly uncooperative as any child his size could possibly be. Which, to be fair, described most of the children Yondu picked up, although Peter had only become mildly less so after his first Terran year on the Eclector. He also had a habit of pinching things off his crewmates and hoarding them up in the air vents in retaliation of any imagined wrong-doing. Even Yondu’s trinkets, if he was feeling particularly brave. Which he often was. He was small and fierce and terribly clever, enough so that Yondu had an inkling the boy would become something of a force to reckon with once he was tall enough to properly menace another full grown man.

Maybe even a captain, if he could only learn a little diplomacy.

Even so, Yondu had been very close to returning the boy to his home planet after his fallout with Stakar. He could still remember their heated conversation vividly, the cold, hard creases of anger and grief marring the edges Stakar’s mouth and eyes, the man’s fists clenched so tightly at his side his arms practically shook from the strain. Stakar had interpreted Yondu’s behavior as a personal offence it seemed. He’d ordered Yondu to put his latest ‘cargo’ back on Earth and never contact him again. This was the end of it for them.

Yondu had been pretty angry too at the time, but he was more shocked than anything that Stakar hadn’t believed him. He felt numb as he closed off the call, his first thought being that he was somehow alone in the universe again, having just lost one of the few people he considered family.

His second thought had been of Ego.

800,000 units for a small Terran boy…

There was no way in hell the man wasn’t eager to get his hands on that kid.

Of course, it had been the same price for all of Ego’s offspring, which was part of why Yondu thought the man was telling the truth about trying to piece together his broken family. _Nobody_ paid that much money for another living being, not when slaves could be bought a dime a dozen. But Peter’s life still seemed very much in danger. After all, the children Yondu had already delivered to Ego were nothing more than a passing memory to the boy’s father, and Yondu knew the man wasn’t paying anyone to take the kids off his planet. It was more than likely the bastard was killing them, although why he would do would forever remain a mystery to Yondu.

At the end of the day though, Yondu’s made many mistakes in his life, but he refused to believe keeping the boy was one of them. He’d made himself responsible for Peter’s well-being, so Stakar could take his code and choke on it.

Peter was his business and his alone.

So when Kraglin’s old friend in Charlie-27’s crew confirms that Stakar’s having himself a little get-together at the _Dwarf Star_ , Yondu hasn’t a lick of apprehension when he marches through the front door and whistles out his arrow. Doesn’t shout; doesn’t push anyone around. Just whistles nice and clear and _low_ so that the people in the back almost have to strain to hear it.

Behind him, Kraglin and the twelve others who tagged along on this mission file in with their blasters raised. The patrons who didn’t spot the arrow from the get-go now fall silent, all eyes trained on the angry little entourage, tensing together, bracing for disaster…

Yondu nods his head at the door. Casually, he says, “ _Get_.”

Thankfully, fights are not all that uncommon in these parts, because the regulars push their way to the door with an uneasy hush, although the bartender shoots Yondu a withering glare as he throws his towel upon the bar. Just as he himself is passing over to the door, he stops beside Yondu and says, “If you break _anything_ …”

Yondu smirks, the sliver of a fang glinting at the corner of his lips. “I promise never to show my face here again.”

His men snicker. The story of their exile serves as both a bitter reminder of their abandonment and as a badge of their independence. How they feel about it at any given moment depends on the time of day and the current situation, said current situation being the settling of a score between two very old acquaintances. So really, they’re feeling both mighty fine and incredibly pissed. Honestly, it’s a miracle nobody’s been introduced to the business end of his arrow yet.

Now that the establishment’s been cleared out, Yondu takes a deep breath and listens. He can hear the old floorboards creaking overhead.

He whistles softly and thinks of Quill.

His arrow does a lazy little somersault in the air, over and over and over again…

Not here, then.

He frowns and thinks of Stakar instead—and finally _that_ gets him the reaction he’s been waiting for as the arrow freezes midair, glowing red tip flaring in excitement.

Yondu smiles and whistles, watching as his arrow soars up the stairs behind the bar, already dead-set on its target. He thinks about how lovely it would be to take Stakar’s ear off in one clean slice, but he can immediately tell when the arrow doesn’t make its mark. He feels it like an ache in his chest, the dead weight of disappointment leaning heavily into his sternum. He can feel it too when its second attempt is thwarted, the blade that beats it down against the ground ringing hard against his ribs—and, somehow, he just _knows_ Aleta is up there with that stuck-up bastard, because nobody else in this godforsaken quadrant has the both balls to battle Yondu’s yaka arrow head on and the raw skill to succeed.

He whistles again to retrieve his arrow, but it doesn’t budge.

He turns to his men and flings his hand up at the ceiling. “Bring ‘em down.”

Deen raises his blaster rifle and fires off a shot, but at a low enough angle that it scraps the ceiling instead of blowing it to kingdom come. It collapses part of the bedroom floor, but not enough that the whole establishment comes crashing down upon their heads. It also preserves the life of the unfortunate soul that falls through the gaping hole—that unfortunate soul being Aleta.

She hits the ground in a low crouch though, graceful as ever in the heat of battle. At the same time, Yondu can hear Stakar’s boots thumping overhead before there’s a crash that sounds an awful lot like a broken window.

Yondu doesn’t have to tell his boys twice. Most of them split off to handle Stakar out in the street while the others try to deal with Aleta, though she’s already well ahead of them. She flings a dart at the nearest of Yondu’s men and catches him in the shoulder, prompting him to drop his blaster. She rolls toward it in an attempt to arm herself, but another man kicks it away first in a blind panic, overextending his leg.

Aleta buries one of her draggers into his calf before pulling it smoothly out again.

Yondu’s not about to see her level his crew before his very eyes, so he whistles forth his arrow. It rises from the debris and darts for her dominant hand. Naturally, she parries with her blade. Then again, and yet again, as fluid in her dance now as she was in any of the sparring matches they used to have in the good old days.

Yondu doesn’t have the heart to kill her and she must know that, sparing him a brief glance that’s more with disappointment than solid anger, as though she can hardly believe they’ve been reduced to this, going through the motions of cutting each other down.

Then Kraglin steps forward, swats her dragger away with the blade of his own, and slaps her hard across the face with his other hand.

The hit stuns all three of them, both because Yondu’s pretty sure nobody’s ever slapped Aleta and lived to tell the tale before and because Kraglin pretty much learned all his moves from her.

“ _Bastard_ ,” she spits, rubbing the side of her face.

Wearing an uncharacteristically stony expression, Kraglin whips out his second dagger and dives right back in.

Yondu’s about to whistle in his support, but then a heavy hand lands on his shoulder and turns him sharply around.

He only gets a fleeting glance of Stakar’s red face before the bastard cuts him square across the jaw with his fist.

Pain explodes at the back of Yondu’s mouth. It’s likely a broken tooth, but he’s no stranger to those. However, it does have the effect of delaying his next whistle as Stakar tries to follow up with another punch. Yondu’s able to bat it away this time though, sending his own fist sailing for the bastard’s face right above the bridge of his nose.

Stakar staggers back a step, but immediately raises his hands again, fists curled into a boxer’s stance. Behind him, Yondu can tell some of Ogord’s cavalry has finally come in, tussling with Yondu’s boys beside the door and out in the street. Means this ugly affair is about to get a hell of a lot messier.

 _Good_.

Yondu spits out a wade of blood and part of his shattered tooth, then wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand. “Where is he?” he growls.

“You’re not taking John,” Stakar replies, venom dripping from his voice as he darts forward for another punch.

Yondu only just moves his head in time, slightly confused and more than a little disturbed by that statement.

John’s been dead for years.

He plants his own fist in Stakar’s diaphragm, earning a winded _oomph_ before Yondu takes a healthy step back. He knows he should whistle his arrow back into action, but the awful reminder of Stakar’s dead kid gives him pause. John was just a little guy when he and his sisters were slaughtered.

Not much older than Peter is now, in fact.

“Are you out of your goddamn _mind_?” Yondu mutters, ducking aside yet another punch.

He knows somebody probably got a good hit in on Stakar already because Ogord’s moves are slower than he remembers. Stakar’s also got a cut above his right eye that’s running like a river, partially blinding him. Makes him look perfectly unhinged.

“You ain’t taking him.” Stakar repeats, this time spicing up the action with a swift kick, catching Yondu painfully against the inside of his left thigh. Doesn’t quite reach the important bits, but it startles Yondu enough that Stakar’s next punch lands its mark, overlapping his last brutal blow to his jaw.

Stunned, Yondu falls back against the floorboards. The pain’s so fierce, he sees stars for a moment. Just about chokes on the last fragment of his tooth too while he’s down there.

But regardless of the agony he’s in, one of the oldest lessons he learned as a slave was that you can’t keep still in battle, so he scrambles to his feet immediately and takes a shaky step back, blinking away the spots in his vision. Stakar’s still got his fists up, no doubt invigorated, but Yondu’s still got the upper hand.

Because pain or no pain, there ain’t no force in the universe that can stop him from whistling.

And he’s just begun to wonder if he’s going to take Stakar out through the throat or the heart when he hears Kraglin cry out in agony behind him. He takes a wide step back and glances quickly over his shoulder, spotting Kraglin lying facedown on the ground in front of the bar with Aleta stretched out across his back. Something glints on the floor before them.

They’re both reaching for one of Aleta’s discarded daggers.

Yondu makes his choice and whistles.

His arrow flies high up into the air before rapidly darting downward again, its majestic arch highlighted with a hellish glow high above the struggling couple. It buries itself in its intended target and pierces the ground with a solid _thwack_ , loud enough that everyone within earshot freezes.

For one horrifying moment, nobody says or does anything.

Yondu wipes away the small dribble of blood at the corner of his lips.

Finally, Kraglin shoves Aleta dead weight off his back. She reacts immediately by smacking him upside the head, but otherwise sits beside him on the ground amiably enough in an unusual state of confusion. Then she pries Yondu’s arrow out of the floor, holding it close to her face as she eyes the gem embedded on the end. Except, it isn’t a gem. Its outer shell had cracked when Yondu skewered it, its ten tiny legs now extended and twitching in the throes of death.

After another second, it goes completely still.

Aleta glances past Yondu at her ex-husband. “You gave me a _bug_?”

Stakar, of course, looks horribly confused. He’s obviously still angry, but the awkward pause in their battle has evidently cooled him off just a bit. He scowls at Yondu and says, “What the hell is going on?”

“I’d really like to knock you flat on your ass right now,” he grumbles, words muffled by his swollen mouth, “but we might have a hell of problem on our hands.”

Stakar gives him the kind of look that says, _‘you think?’_

“How many of these suckers did you take from the desert?” Kraglin asks as he pushes himself up to his feet.

There’s a pause as Stakar slowly clues into the severity of this unspoken situation. “We’ve got a whole crate of them on the Starhawk,” he finally says. “…What is that thing?”

Yondu whistles again, recalling the arrow to his hand. He gives the little beasty a leery look before tossing it off with a hard flick of the wrist. “Don’t know; don’t care. You should space them before they get bigger.”

Stakar’s eyes narrow at _‘bigger’_.

Yondu doesn’t give a damn if the man believes him.  He holds his free hand out at about hip level, palm down. “They grow stingers when they’re about yay high. Takes them less than a day after they hatch.”

“The fuck,” Aleta mutters. “You must be joking.”

Yondu shrugs. If Stakar wants those little bastards to eat his entire crew alive, who is Yondu to stop him?

After all, this wouldn’t be the first time everyone ignored him.

Taking a deep breath, he loosens his grip around his arrow. Just a smidgen, so nobody notices. He’s still itching to bury it somewhere on Stakar’s anatomy, but now he can’t quite decide…

Then Kraglin says, “Where’s the boy?”

Yondu wholly expects Stakar to go on another one of his infamous rants, but for once he’s unusually quiet.

In fact, he looks a bit worried.

It takes a second for Yondu to interpret the man’s unnatural silence.

He slams his arrow back in its holster with more force than necessary and takes a step closer to Stakar. Feeling the icy tendrils of fear coiling in his gut, he repeats the question himself:

“ _Where_ is the goddamn boy, jackass?”

Finally, Stakar says, “The ship.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Peter's about to have an strange and terrifying adventure.
> 
> Also, Stakar and Yondu are not done b*tching at each other.
> 
> Not by a long shot.


	7. Bad Moon Rising

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Guys, I am _so_ sorry about the unexpected hiatus. My girlfriend had her PhD Candidacy Exam this week and needed a little extra emotional support this summer. I spent most of my off time with her, keeping her happy and calm, which is how this story flel to the wayside (but it paid off, because she passed!!!). Anyway, I’m going to get back to powering through this story, because it’s almost done and I don’t want to leave you on another cliffhanger. Thank you ever so much for your incredible patience!
> 
> Anyhow, I love Creedence Clearwater -- the credit for this chapter’s title goes to their very catchy song. Funny but foreboding. I love it.

He doesn’t know what to believe.

He _wants_ to believe this is an elaborate ruse. Yondu had always been good at those. In fact, he was one of _the_ _best_ conmen Stakar ever knew. Yondu just had a knack for knowing when to lean hard on his mark and when to use a gentler touch, which was part of the reason Stakar hadn’t hesitated to make him a captain.

Yondu had a talent for manipulating people in his favor.

But there’s something about this whole situation that smacks of the truth, and it’s not just the crippled husk of that goddamn insectoid lying on the ground at Yondu’s feet. It’s the fact that Yondu came in here looking for blood but stopped just short of taking it, as though they might really have a bonified crisis on their hands.

Painful as it is for him to admit it, Stakar knows Yondu could’ve skewered him by now if he’d really wanted to, busted jaw or not. After all, there’s a reason Yondu survived 20 years as a Kree warrior slave and it had nothing to do with his godawful sense of humor.

Regardless, what this whole convoluted situation really boils down to is the fact that Stakar’s got two problems on his hands now instead of one.

But first things first:

He turns to the nearest bluecoat, a Xandarian named Den. “Send a message up to the ship about the jewels,” he snaps. “Tell whoever’s up there to space them. Then send Martinex back down if he’s already left.”

“He’s just outside, sir,” the man replies, nodding at the door. Stakar can hear the battle still going out in the street, the shouts and cries of a miserable bunch of men laying into each other with all their hearts, accompanied by the familiar smell of burning leather.

He shoos the man away with the wave of his hand and hopes to god that John is still on the ground, despite the war raging on outside. He can defend the boy from rowdy men. Not so much hostile lifeforms from another planet.

The semblance of a solution now in motion, Stakar returns his attention to the second problem at hand, that being Yondu Udonta. The man is standing his ground in the middle of the saloon, back ramrod straight and a fire burning in his eye, as though he weren’t in any real danger of losing his life in this encounter.

Anger burns like acid in Stakar’s gut, licking at his oesophagus like the tender venom of an alien disease.

It makes him _sick_.

 “Get the hell out,” Stakar growls, his vision blurring momentarily along the border. He can feel _it_ roiling inside of him, trying to claw its way back to the surface. “This is your _only_ warning.”

But Yondu’s just as dense as he remembers. His old friend flashes the tips of his fangs at Stakar in the mockery of a smile as he says, “Not without my crew.”

Stakar balls his hands into fists and takes a step forward. “You got a _lot_ of nerve, Udonta…”

Predictably, Yondu takes a step forward too, hands still on his hips, holding his coat open in such a way that his arrow’s got a clear shot at Stakar’s face. “You’re messin’ in something you don’t even understand the half of, _Ogord_.”

“Try me,” he snarls.

“I already have,” is Yondu’s sharp retort, just as the front door slams open against the wall.

Martinex jogs into the room, crystalline knuckles coated in somebody else’s blood. Before Stakar can open his mouth to speak, his first mate says, “It’s the Terran.”

“What?”

Martinex looks first at Kraglin and then Yondu. “John’s the Terran. The one from three years ago.”

At first, Stakar is confused. He feels as though he’s missing a vital piece of information here, but then his brain supplies him with the image of John’s red blood splattered across the freshly fallen snow. If it’s true that he’s a Terran— _the_ Terran, then his adamance about being a member of Yondu’s crew finally makes a lick of sense.

Three years in captivity is plenty of time for a person to grow attached to their captor.

Once the confusion subsides, Stakar pivots around sharply and grabs the front of Yondu’s coat. The fact that Yondu doesn’t lash out at him immediately is very telling. “You son of a _bitch_. You—”

“ _Hold_!” Aleta snaps, suddenly so much closer than he remembers, prying her arms between them. This is an eerily familiar tableau between the three of them, one that sends a lance of pain through Stakar’s heart.  “Obviously this matter is a little more complicated than either of us anticipated. Just _calm_ _down_ , Stakar.”

“What’s so complicated about it?!” Stakar hollers, hackles rising at the stone-cold look of resolution on Yondu’s face. His vision wavers again, speckles of light creeping over the shadowy border in a way that does not bode well. “I _told_ you to put him back, Udonta!”

“Why?” the other man sneers. “So his daddy could get a hold of him? I ain’t the only person Ego hired to collect his brood.”

“Then why not drop him off somewhere else?” Aleta asks, clearly still a little peeved with the whole situation herself.

Yondu glances aside at her. “Right,” he snorts, lips curled in disdain. “Because that worked so well for the two of you.”

Stakar blinks.

Finally, an red mist clouds his vision. It feels like he’s falling back into the void, the one he shared with Aleta so many years ago.

Thankfully, it fades faster than normal this time. He comes to standing over Yondu’s crumpled form, Kraglin hovering just behind his captain, a blaster leveled at Stakar’s head.

Rubbing his tender jaw, Yondu spits out a second tooth and slowly climbs back to his feet, red eyes burning with an unholy passion. His next words come out slightly muffled, but their meaning is still abundantly clear. “Ego wants them all and he’s gonna _get_ them all, one way or another. Best place for the boy is on the move.”

“And why do you care so much?” Stakar snaps. “He ain’t your kid!”

Yondu’s brows furrow with something akin to pain, as though that statement truly wounded him. But he recovers quickly, chest puffed up as he says, “He’s still my responsibility.”

Through the haze of hurt and frustration, Stakar hears the echo of his own philosophy in Yondu’s words.

He just doesn’t know if that makes this situation better or worse.

Behind him, somebody else slams the door open, booking it across the room with an obvious sense of urgency. Stakar turns around to see Baozhai making a beeline for him, eyes wide with panic as she says, “We’ve got a situation up top, Captain.”

He tenses. “What kind of situation?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know—control radioed down to say something massive is murdering the crew. Krugarr’s already killed one of the creatures, but he estimates there’s more.”

It doesn’t take Stakar long to react. “Radio everyone that’s on the ground to get back to the ship,” After she’s snapped a salute at him, he turns to Martinex. “Where’s the kid?”

Martinex glances briefly at Yondu and then back at him. “Krugarr took him to the Starhawk already.”

“Aw, hell…” Yondu mutters. He glances over at Kraglin. “You ready?”

Kraglin gives him a sharp nod.

“ _Hell_ no,” Stakar says. “You’re not ever setting foot on my ship again, Udonta.”

“Those little suckers move fast,” Yondu replies. He gives his arrow’s holster a purposeful pat. “But not as fast as me.”

“ _You_ —”

“ _Stakar_ ,” Aleta snaps, reaching the end of her tether. The wild look in her eyes gives him pause. Then she takes a deep breath and turns to Yondu. “You and Obfonteri can ride up with me, but your other men _must_ remain down here.”

Yondu shrugs.

Said men look marginally relieved.

“Aleta…” Stakar mutters.

“Don’t be a moron,” she grumbles. “Yondu’s already fought them.” Her eyes trail back to the man in question, her expression wary but strangely resolute. “I’m assuming that means you know how best to kill them?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, sharing a loaded look with Kraglin. “But you ain’t gonna like how.”

Stakar opens his mouth to speak, but Aleta fluently interjects again:

“We’re listening.”

~*~*~*~

He runs.

He runs until he rounds a corner a little too sharply, trips over something large, and lands in a hard sprawl on the grated floor. Knocks the air clear out of his burning lungs, but he doesn’t have time to stop. He rolls over onto his back, glances briefly at the mangled body on the ground, and then scrambles to his feet.

The lights flicker overhead.

He can hear the frantic tapping of that _thing’s_ spindly legs as it races down the hall behind him, so he spares no more than a moment searching unsuccessfully for a knife or blaster on the corpse before he’s off again, wondering if the thing’s tracking him by sound or smell or heat signature. If it’s either of the latter two, he’s toast. Otherwise, he just needs to put a little distance between himself and the beast, at least long enough for him to catch his breath.

He thought perhaps he was hallucinating when that thing first crawled out from under the table in the mess hall, six menacing feet long and baring the kind of mandibles nightmares were made of. It had darted for his legs just as he bolted for the door, hissing and clicking in way that sounded delightfully malevolent as it took chase after him.

Peter’s been running blindly through the ship ever since, frantically searching for salvation. He’d been hoping he’d run into somebody else by now, but he’s only encountered one other corpse and nothing much else besides that. Flickering lights also suddenly seem to be the norm, although he supposes those are a necessary staple in any horror story. Peter’s just waiting for them to die altogether and plunge him into absolute darkness, his only company the cruel tittering of the beast as it closes in behind him.

He hasn’t made much of an effort to try any of the doors along the way and he’s beginning to wonder if he should. If he found a vent in one of the side rooms, he could easily shimmy into it. But he’d need time to pry the screws off the grate and he doesn’t want to risk trapping himself somewhere with only one exit. As long as he’s in the hall, he can’t get cornered.

Except he pretty much is after he rounds the next bend in the corridor. Technically, there’s a set of double doors at the far end of the hall, but these lead to the bridge and he’s under no illusion that he’ll find them unlocked.

Regardless, he thumps against them with his tiny fists, praying there’s somebody still alive on the other side—and jumps back a step when the doors slide open to reveal Creneth.

Thankfully, the man wastes no time in yanking Peter across the threshold before the doors slam firmly shut behind him again. Faintly, Peter can hear his pursuer racing down the hall, followed by a dull thump as it throws itself against the doors.

Peter rubs his face with his hands, then runs them up through his hair. His chest heaves with every breath.

Not for the first time, he wishes Yondu and his yaka arrow were here.

“Are you hurt?” Creneth asks, kneeling down in front of him. They can hear another dull thump on the other side of the doors, but the Bridge is obviously built to withstand heavy artillery from both outside and within the ship. They can ignore the beast.

For now.

“No,” Peter gasps, lungs burning. Living on the Eclector has kept him in shape, but he hasn’t run for that long since the last time he took Phys Ed.

Creneth dabs a scaly finger against the blue blood on the sleeve of Peter’s jacket. “You sure?”

“Ain’t mine,” he explains.

“It’s Jaxan’s,” someone sighs at the far end of the room. It’s a young guy with short fuchsia hair. He’s sitting before a holo-screen and milling through the security feed on the ship. Unfortunately, at least half of the cameras he pulls up are blank. “Those freaks just got Carna too…”

“What are they?” Peter asks.

“No clue,” Creneth admits. Then he nods his head to the left, toward the corner of the room. “Do you recognize them at all?”

There are fifteen other men and women currently waiting out the storm on the Bridge, crowded around one of the creatures. Thankfully though, this one is dead, green gunk oozing out of several gashes in its abdomen and a long strip of burnt flesh along its left side.

“No,” Peter replies, although he takes a curious step closer. This one is about eight feet long, just a little bigger than the one that’s still thumping against the door. There’s a natural looking hole about a quarter of the way down its stomach. Something that could almost be the tip of a stinger is partially concealed within.

“They can rear up on their hind legs and shoot you,” one of the men mutters. “Take’s forever to kill the bastards.”

The woman standing beside him shudders.

Overhead, the lights flicker and finally go out. About a second later, the emergency lights above the door kick into action, bathing the room in an eerie, red glow.

“They’ve been chewing on the wiring, apparently,” Creneth says. “Before our transmitter died, we were told that’s how they start off, by siphoning energy from other sources.”

Peter nods slowly, wondering if these creatures were what had been mincing the wiring on some of the M-ships. “Okay…so, what are we going to do?”

“Sit tight,” Creneth replies. “Krugarr’s roaming around, looking for survivors. Once he gets back, we need to find a way to carry out the Captain’s orders.”

“And those are?”

“Shut off the artificial gravity,” the guy with the pink hair supplies, leaning back in his chair, feet kicked up on the console now that his holo-screen is dead. “Their legs aren’t as adhesive when they get bigger, meaning they can’t stick to the walls. In zero gravity, they’ll be easier to pick off.”

Peter frowns. “Then what’s the hold up?”

“I counted at least twenty of those things between here and the Generator a minute ago. It took ten of us to kill just one. Running there isn’t exactly an option.”

“Could we get there through a vent?”

“No,” Creneth quickly interjects, cottoning on to Peter’s plan.

“Yes?” the guy with the pink hair replies, giving Creneth a weird look before returning his attention to Peter. “The Generator’s one floor down, so there’s a bit of a drop, but you wouldn’t have to leave the vents to get there.”

“ _No_ ,” Creneth reiterates. “He’s a kid, Cam.”

“I’m _crew_ ,” Peter mutters, slapping the flame on his chest. “I can do it.”

Creneth just gives him a weary look, the kind Peter is getting awfully sick of seeing by now.

Peter closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He still feels a little jittery from the journey to the Bridge, but Yondu taught him that people who panic don’t live very long. Sometimes you just need to let your mind kick back and relax…

Calmly, Peter opens his eyes and says, “You still got people wandering around the ship, right? Well, the sooner we flip the switch, the more of them we’ll save. Let me help.”

Creneth gaps at him for a moment, mouth working as he searches for the right words. But there isn’t anything for him _to_ say, because he knows Peter’s right.

And so does everyone else, as evidenced by the woman who steps forward to hand Peter a dagger. Another man crouches beside the far wall, unscrewing the small grate over one of the vents before pulling it aside.

“Be careful,” Creneth says quietly. “And no detours. No matter what you hear. Got that?”

Peter nods.

Cam climbs out of his seat, a crumpled piece of paper in one hand. Old fashioned writing stationary really isn’t a staple in space, so Peter is hardly surprised when the man pulls something that looks a little like a clump of black soot out of his pocket to scribble down a map and the instructions on how to turn off the artificial gravity. “Stay safe, little man,” he says as he hands it to Peter.

Giving it a quick read over, Peter stuffs the paper into his jacket pocket before making his way over to the vent. Everyone watches him in silence as he crouches down and tucks the dagger into his boot. He can still hear the creature thumping faintly against the door behind him as he crawls into the darkness.

Oddly enough, he feels safer here.

But then, he’d always felt safer in the vents. He’s hidden from a multitude of dangers in them, theoretically protected from all but Yondu’s yaka arrow. Although, strangely enough, Yondu never sent his arrow into the vents, almost as though he knew the airshafts were a sacred place, somewhere Peter could escape the grief of his old life and the horrors of his new one.

The vents are barely tall enough for him to crawl, but he makes his way slowly forward, touching the left wall every once in a while to feel for the first turn. He finds it and continues onward, a red glow growing in the distance from an emergency light just outside another grate. It illuminates the missing panel up ahead, the top of the fifteen foot drop leading to the level below.

With practiced ease, Peter carefully leans over the drop until he can reach the floor panel on the opposite side. Then he vaults awkwardly forward, half lying over it while letting his legs drop freely down below him. Once he’s certain he isn’t going to slip and fall, he extends his right foot back, bracing a leg against either wall of the shaft as he lowers himself down. It takes a bit of maneuvering, but he eventually lowers himself enough that he can push his back up against one wall while bracing his legs out in front of him, shimmying down with the utmost care.

Thankfully, this isn’t the first time he’s climbed between levels in a vent. He’s able to count down the seconds until he reaches the bottom. Although, he doesn’t quite make it there the conventional way. Something rams into the right side of the shaft, almost knocking him out of place. A second later, there’s a loud _bang_ as the creature finally pierces the panel beside him.

Something grazes his chest. Tentatively, he raises his left hand to touch it.

There’s a foot-long spike embedded in the wall panel just to the left of him, covered in slime. It missed him by a hairsbreadth.

Heart racing, Peter lets himself drop the last three feet.

The creature pierces the shaft with another spike, but Peter’s already out of range, scrambling to reorient himself in the darkness toward the Generator. It’s a tight fit, but he somehow manages not to get turned around, left hand tingling in a way that’s just a mite alarming. All the more reason he should hurry, he thinks, and so hurry he does, scurrying through the vents until he reaches the grate to the Generator. Under the glow of the red emergency lights, he pulls out his dagger and wedges it under the bolts to wiggle them loose, popping the grate off in one go. Then he squeezes out into freedom.

He can see the Generator up against the far wall, a massive engine capable of producing its own small supply of energy in a crisis such as this, continuously pumping heat and oxygen while keeping everyone’s feet on the ground. Technically, he’ll be shutting off more than just the artificial gravity when he types in the kill command, but if this Generator is anything like the one on the Eclector, it’ll automatically turn itself back on in under an hour if it doesn’t detect any internal damage.

Which means the clock is ticking for them to get rid of their uninvited guests.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Peter pulls out the scrap of paper and steps up to the control panel in front of the engine. It has a working holo-screen since its hooked up to the Generator itself. Peter types in the commands, one by one, until a message pops up, instructing him to continue at the next terminal.

Frowning, Peter glances around the room. Sure enough, there’s another screen beside the door on the far side of the room.

He wanders over and types in the next command. It instructs him to continue at the first terminal.

He gets an odd feeling when the message appears, but he doesn’t understand what it means until he returns to the first holo-screen and realizes it’s reset itself to the main menu.

Baffled, Peter types in the sequence of commands a second time, only for it to instruct him to continue at the opposite terminal once more. He elects to ignore it and just continue working here, but an error message pops up and loops him back to the beginning.

Peter takes a deep breath and tries again, but this time he keeps his eyes on the first terminal as he types the command into the second. Sure enough, he can see a different message appear momentarily on the first screen before it flickers back to the main menu.

Someone’s reprogramed the Generator so that it requires to _two_ people to shut it down, one to work at either station.

“Well, this is _dumb_ ,” he mutters darkly, even if it’s anything but. In reality, he knows you’d want someone to have a hell of a time shutting down all life support aboard a spaceship.

He tries the whole damn procedure one last time just to make sure he didn’t type anything incorrectly and then begins weighing the pros and cons of heading back to the Bridge to grab an extra pair of hands. He’s more than capable of climbing back up the shaft, but he’s not too keen on trying his luck with that creature again. Besides, there’s really nobody else capable of squeezing themselves comfortably into the vents…

Exasperated, he studies the small map scribbled in the corner of the paper and wonders if he can find an alternative route back to the Bridge.

Just as he’s trying to picture his route back though, he hears a loud bang out in the hallway.

Of the blaster variety, no less.

Of course, it’s followed by an ear-splitting shriek from one of those horrendous creatures and a shout from the unfortunate soul going toe to toe with it, but the whole situation is still a blessing in disguise. Peter cautiously walks over to the door, throws back the latch locking it in place, and opens it a crack to peek out into the hallway. 

Predictably, there is, in fact, one of those giant creatures gnashing its mandibles together in a frightening display of aggression at the far end of the corridor, but there are also three men standing before it. Two of them fire at it with their blasters until it rears back on its six posterior legs, exposing its soft underbelly to the third fellow. Evidently, this puts it in a vulnerable position, one which the third man takes full advantage of as he darts forward, dagger in hand, to gut it in one fell swoop.

The creature squeals in agony and rears further back, almost falling over itself as the three men bolt. Great gouts of green blood turned black under the glow of the emergency lights gush from the gaping wound left in the dagger’s wake. It thrashes its head from side to side as its long legs clutch blindly for its attacker.

Peter opens the door further, standing aside to permit the men through. Said men just so happen to be Martinex, a tall buff guy he doesn’t recognize, and Kraglin Obfonteri, all of them looking edgy but determined in a way that Peter thinks bodes well for the situation at hand.

Kraglin takes a moment to fling some of the creature’s blood off the blade of his dagger as Peter slams the door shut behind them and throws the latch back into place. He’s clearly disgusted by the ooze, but his revulsion fades fast when he catches sight of Peter.

There’s an awkward pause before Peter says, “Hi.”

Kraglin blinks. “Hi.”

“What are you doing here?” Martinex asks, obviously annoyed with the lag in their conversation. “Is Krugarr nearby?”

“Don’t know,” Peter replies absently. He’s a little stunned by Kraglin’s appearance. “Why would anybody let you set foot on this ship?”

Kraglin nods his head at the door. The creature is still squealing on the other side, but there’s a subtle sucking quality to its cries now, wet and weak and lethal. It’s the strangest swan song Peter’s ever heard. “We had the same problem. ‘Volunteered’ to help them out.”

Peter knows that the emphasis on ‘ _volunteered’_ means the Udonta clan will be expecting some form of compensation for their troubles. Possibly of the monetary sort.

But also possibly not.

“Did you come for me?” Peter asks quietly. There’s a small part of his eleven-year-old gut that quivers pathetically in fear at the prospect that maybe they didn’t, because while he thinks he could live with being abducted twice by space pirates, he doesn’t think he stomach the thought of his original captor passing up the opportunity to save him if said opportunity presented itself.

“Yeah,” Kraglin sighs. Not as though he disagrees with that decision, but like he can hardly believe he supports it himself. “Got your message. You spelled ‘Stakar’ wrong, by the way.”  

“How do you spell it?”

“With a ‘k’.”

“You sent a message?” Martinex asks.

Kraglin side-eyes the other man the same way he usually side-eyes Peter when he’s annoyed beyond belief.

Martinex ignores him. “You sent it when you were alone on that M-ship, didn’t you?”

Peter doesn’t have the energy for unnecessary lies. “Yes,” he says. And then, because he means it: “I’m sorry.”

Martinex glances between him and Kraglin like there’s something else he wants to say, but eventually he just turns away and marches over to the main console.

Kraglin’s gaze lingers on Martinex’s back before he stares down the gruff guy standing beside them. Their nameless companion sneers in retaliation before joining Martinex on the other side of the room, leaving them to their illusion of privacy.

Satisfied, Kraglin finally says, “What the hell happened to your hair?”

Peter runs a hand through the short, wavy strands. Given all the excitement of today, he’d forgotten it was cut. “It was getting long.”

“Looks all proper-like,” Kraglin grumbles. He tugs on an errant strand, like it’s the most hideous thing he’s seen in all his life. “We’ll fix it later.”

Peter gets a little giddy at the thought of returning to the Eclector, so he doesn’t put much force behind slapping Kraglin’s hand away. “What’s the plan after we’ve shut down the Generator?”

“Get everybody to the hanger and evacuate. Captain and Stakar are going to stay behind to clear out the remaining creatures.”

Yondu could lay a lot of enemies to waste from afar with his arrow, but Peter doesn’t see how Stakar is going to be more useful in battle than any old run-of-the-mill humanoid. Not unless he’s got a secret long-range weapon of his own. “What can Stakar do?”

The corner of Kraglin’s mouth quirks into the briefest of smiles. “A lot.”

Peter feels like there’s an interesting story behind those two simple words, but there’s an even more interesting one he’d be remiss to not to pursue while he still has the chance. He tilts his head toward Martinex and says, “Were you guys friends?”

“No,” Kraglin says sharply—about the same time that Martinex says, “Yes.”

The two men turn to stare at each other.

Kraglin is the first to speak, face screwed up in his trademark scowl, like he’s tasted something sour but is determined not to spit it out. “We ain’t _ever_ been friends.”

“We were at one point,” Martinex corrects him.

Kraglin shakes his head, eyes dark, like Martinex is inching his way over an imaginary line. “A friend would’ve heard me out. I know Stakar and the Captain used to get at each other’s throats, but you knew me better than that.”

“You stood by and watched him break the code,” is Martinex’s stern response. “You were supposed to be Yondu’s sober second thought when he came dangerously close to making a stupid mistake like that. You _failed_ him.”

“We didn’t _know_ ,” Kraglin snaps. “You honestly think we would’ve done it if we’d known they were in danger?”

Something clicks in the back of Peter’s brain. Unfortunately, it isn’t anything brilliant.

Just foreboding.

“You mean the kids?” he asks. The thought that Stakar had been right about Yondu all along makes him feel sick. “Yondu _really_ trafficked kids?”

“No,” Kraglin says quickly. Too quickly, almost.

“Then what about the man you were giving them to? Who is he?”

“An asshole. Trust me. He _ain’t_ what he says he is.”

Peter resists the urge to kick him in the shins. “That’s a shitty answer.”

“Take it up with the Captain if you don’t like it.”

“Is he gonna be evasive too?” Peter mutters. His stomach does a little somersault as something else occurs to him. “Were you gonna give _me_ up?”

“No.”

“Really?” Martinex asks, pausing to wave his subordinate over to the second console. “Because as I recall it, you took the full payment for him, didn’t you?”

“Gotta cheat a guy wherever you can,” Kraglin mutters. When Peter opens his mouth to tear the man a new one, Kraglin shoves his finger in Peter’s face, suddenly looming over him in a way that seems almost impossible for a man with a physique as slender as his. “This story ain’t _anything_ like Ogord says it is, so you can keep your complaints to yourself, boy. You _know_ I wouldn’t hesitate to drop you off on the nearest moon if it were that simple.”

Which is true enough. He and Peter got along alright for the most part, but there was definitely a solid rivalry ongoing between them, one that Peter still doesn’t completely understand.

Peter feels ill about this whole affair, but he supposes now isn’t the time to bicker, not when they need to focus on their current mission. He slaps Kraglin’s finger out of his face and storms over to Martinex, watching as the first mate signals to his companion to type in the command.

Martinex quickly continues his own sequence once it’s been initiated. In a couple of seconds a klaxon goes off overhead, loud enough that Peter’s left ear pops. It goes on like that for a small eternity before Martinex turns to him and offers him a hand.

Just as Peter takes a hold of it, the alarm dies. The Generator finally shuts itself down.

Ever so gently, he rises from the ground.

He has mixed feeling about zero-gravity. The first time he experienced it, he was accidentally sucked out one of the M-ships while he and Oblo were trying to flee the Nova Corps.  Thankfully, he’d already had his air-mask engaged, but he didn’t have jet boots like the other guys, and drifting aimlessly in space is a terrifying experience when you can’t control where you’re going. All the same, it’s still a remarkable sensation. Tranquility in its purest form, especially when the whole world falls silent around you, floating in a sea of a million multicoloured lights from every star in the known universe.

Martinex is close enough to the main console that he’s able to kick off it and propel them to the door, which Kraglin is already prying open. Silently, they drift down the hallway and turn left at the first fork in the corridor, bouncing off any solid surface to keep themselves on the move. They encounter two of those bizarre arachnid-worms along the way, but it was true what Cam said about the creatures. They can’t stick to any surface due to their sheer size and their legs aren’t strong enough to propel them anywhere once they do encounter an even surface.

They look horribly comical floating in mid-air, tiny legs kicking frantically as they struggle to find purchase. Kraglin shoots them both in the gut with his blaster before tucking it back into his thigh holster and floating carelessly onward. Blood oozes from their abdomens as they titter in agony, mandibles snapping at the man as he drifts away.

Martinex squeezes Peter hand as they pass the convulsing creatures. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m okay,” he says. He’s unaccustomed to having so many people concerned with his well-being in a single day.

He thinks he might miss it when he’s gone.

Peter feels a twinge of regret, both for the long-con he’s been playing and his general bull-headedness toward everyone. At long last, he quietly says, “My real name is Peter, by the way… Peter Quill.”

Martinex glances back at him with a smirk. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Quill.”

Curious, Kraglin asks, “What did you tell them your name was before?”

“John,” Martinex supplies. “John Wayne.”

There’s a moment’s pause before Kraglin just about splits his own gut open laughing. In the distance, a creature chirps angrily in response.

“He was a famous actor,” Peter replies sheepishly. “Always played a tough guy.”

“Suits you,” Martinex says, “You’re a tough kid.”

“…You’re not mad?”

“Why would I be mad?”

Peter shrugs. As they drift closer to the wall, he kicks off it with his feet to keep them on track. “Because I lied to you?”

Martinex contemplates his answer quietly for a moment. Then he says, “Desperate times call for desperate measures, do they not?”

Peter smiles.

Martinex squeezes his hand again.

He’s going to really miss this guy.

Thankfully, he’s not given much time to ponder how hard it’s going to be to leave. Up ahead, he can hear muffled voices.

Swinging around the next corner, they come across the brunt of the surviving crew floating around the exit to the main hanger. However, the door is still closed and nobody looks like they’re in any hurry to get through to the other side.

“What’s the hold up?” Martinex asks. He releases Peter’s hand as he glides through the crowd, but Peter coasts along behind him anyway, keen to see what all the fuse is about.

“There’s two of ’em inside,” a young man replies, pointing through the ballistic windows on the doors.

Curious, Martinex stares through the glass. Peter peeks over his shoulder and whistles lowly in surprise. One of the creatures has managed to grow a whopping _twenty_ feet long, although the debris floating around its head—the kind that looks suspiciously like humanoid limbs—might explain how. It’s successfully coiled its long body around an M-ship, ducking its head into a hole it made under the front engine, sparks flying as it feasts. Then it raises its head sharply again and waves its mandibles at the door, as though taunting them.

There’s another long one clutching to the gangplank above the main doors, slowly extending itself toward the M-ship before its brethren clicks madly at it in warning.

“On the bright side,” the young man mutters, “they like to eat each other too.”

Martinex rubs the back of his neck. “Is it just me, or does the one on the M-ship have a darker abdomen?”

“Yep. They grow armor. Udonta tried to skewer it with his arrow earlier but that didn’t work.”

“We could just space it,” Peter suggests. “The hanger doors run on their own back-up generators, don’t they?”

“Yeah, but the security room is all the way up there,” the young man tries to point it out. Peter can see a large ballistic window about three stories up and to the left. “Someone tried to get into the hanger from the other end, but the fucker on the gangplank is faster than he looks.”

“They’re insatiable,” Martinex mutters darkly. “But that’s probably why they’re rare. They burn off their resources faster than they can consume them.”

“We can’t wait them out,” Kraglin says from the back of the crowd. A few people are visibly confused by the presence of a red jacket aboard their ship, but at least nobody is complaining. “The artificial gravity will kick in before they starve.”

“I could go through the vents again,” Peter supplies.

Martinex shakes his head. “That’s a long trek.”

“In zero gravity?” Peter chuckles. “I could get up there in no time.”

Martinex pauses to contemplate his plan.

Then he glows.

Baffled, Peter squints at the brilliant array of light that suddenly shines from Martinex’s crystalline features. He gets a momentary flashback to the old disco ball keychain that his mom hung over the kitchen sink, catching the last few rays of sunshine in the early evening and lighting the whole room up like one of those parties she’d frequent as a girl. He used to get such a kick out of seeing the colors dance across the whitewashed walls.

The unexpected lightshow is then followed by an odd kind of warmth radiating toward him from the left. Peter turns his head to inspect the true source of light—and reaches out for Martinex in surprise.

At the far end of the corridor is another creature. This one is humanoid, with a body made of wispy black smoke and eyes that burn like the sun. A hazy demon from the great beyond. Or perhaps an angel, if the two wing-like rays of light are anything to go by, but Peter hasn’t believed in angels since the one his mother often spoke of failed to see her off, and he doesn’t think angels are supposed to inspire the kind of fear he’s experiencing right now anyway. Angels are supposed to make you feel warm and safe, like they’ve come to finally take you home.

Must be a demon then.

Martinex takes his hand calmly. “It’s alright. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“What is it?” Peter asks, watching as ‘It’ glides gracefully down the hall toward them. The crew parts before it as quickly as they can, but there isn’t an ounce of fear on their glowing faces.

The look shining in their eyes is something more like pride and triumph.

Holding onto Peter, Martinex kicks off the door to make way for the ethereal being. “You aren’t going to guess?”

As it drifts closer, Peter realizes he can’t afford to stare at it directly any longer. Eyes burning, he squints down at the ground, watching it through his peripheral vision.

As it approaches, it raises a hand toward him, fingers ghosting gently over his cheek before turning its attention toward the door. And Just like that, the fear and apprehension melts away from Peter’s body, as though they had never even been there to begin with…

 _This,_ he suddenly realizes, is the true face of Stakar Ogord.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Peter's such a heroic little guy. He deserves to be a legend someday.
> 
> But you know what they say about legends...
> 
> PS: I forgot to mention that I'm still drawing info from the comics about Stakar & co, with a few tweaks. Hence the being of light...


	8. Sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: If you haven't read the comics, Stakar is a fascinating character (kind of a dick too, but oh well). He and Aleta accidentally awaken an ancient being known as the Hawk God one day while wondering through some old ruins { _winks meaningfully_ }. In short, they're given amazing powers, but are cursed in a peculiar way. Only one of them can occupy a physical space in this reality at any given a time. The other one gets sent to limbo.
> 
> I'm not going to go into too much detail about it, but they eventually find a way to free themselves. However, I still like the idea of them fusing together like some kind of super saiyan to tap back into their old powers. Said powers include an incredible level of invulnerability, the manipulation of light and energy, and (just in Stakar's case) a sense of premonition. I hope this clears up any confusion from the last chapter...

It’s been a while.

Two minds, one body. But how much of a soul? Half, perhaps, and that’s being generous...

There’s been a black mark eating away at them like acid, creating a void that can never be filled. Stakar knows part of why he and Aleta split was because of the loathing they harbored for both themselves and each other following the death of their children, but part of it was also to avoid having to acknowledge this gaping hollow in their hearts. Melding into each other once again, submitting themselves to the Hawk and taking from that vengeful god in return, lifts the corner of the rug and gives them a peek of what’s been festering beneath the surface all along: hatred, contempt, sorrow…

Longing.

Time ceases to exist when they’re in this state. Stakar knows—remembers—assumes taking Aleta’s hand in his for the first time in so many years and finally opening the flood gates to the beast that’s been prowling the perimeter of his sanity since their lives fell apart. It’s an odd kind of therapy, fusing with one’s wife. He stands before the tidal wave of her darker emotions, and then, in the recession, savors the feeling of warmth left in its wake. He recognizes that warmth at once. It’s her secret yearning to forgive him, to love him yet again. She wants closure.

She wants a new beginning.

Stakar doesn’t know what she sees of him in return, but he holds her close to him on that intangible plane of their shared psyche and wills her to know that it’s alright. He’s missed her terribly. He would give anything to be with her again.

A calm settles over them. They are surrounded by silence and light. Slowly, then, Aleta gives way to him, handing him the reigns for their shared form, watching from the back of his mind as he opens his eyes and begins the hunt.

As he roams his ship, he sees many things.

He sees his friends and allies as they were before, young and reckless and free. He also sees them as they are now and how they might very well be, like phantoms weaving patterns one over the other, their voices echoing through the ages. He sees much of Yondu in particular, as both the slave he liberated from the Kree and the cocksure young man who used to strut through the corridors of Stakar’s battleship, a whistle ever at the ready on his lips. He sees the Yondu of today just as cocksure and vicious, his arrow sailing effortlessly through his enemies. Yondu fells these creatures with an ease that makes Stakar proud. The Centaurian moves with the fluidity of a man who truly _lives_ with every breath he takes, not a moment wasted since his emancipation.

But Stakar also sees him dead.

He sees him in pain. Not afraid, but in considerable agony. Cold. Alone… There is a swell of warmth in his heart in the final hour of his life and an ache so unbelievably deep. Then nothing.

Stakar knows that ache is love but he’s never known Yondu to love anyone. But love he must, because there it is, as bright and blinding as the light that shines from within Stakar himself. It’s not an absolute future, but it’s the likeliest one, and as the One Who Knows, Stakar has never been wrong about the future before.

He tries to ignore Yondu as he makes his way through the ship, letting loose the light on any creature he encounters. They are such ugly things. He can see the outline of their physical forms, but at the heart of each he beholds a chasm. An ‘absence’—A truer void than the one Stakar thought was festering inside himself. These creatures are fueled by a cold and unforgiving hatred. They take pleasure in their killings. They want to feast and they want to _ruin_ , the way they almost ruined the ancient civilization that buried them millennia ago.

He takes pleasure in killing them himself.

Stakar’s wanderings inevitably bring him back to the hanger. He can practically feel the fear radiating from the men and woman gathered there, but more so he can sense the Light. It’s a different kind of Light than the one that fuels his powers. It is soft and quiet. Unassuming.

Lethal.

As he draws closer, he realizes that this unusual Light is John. It shines both within the boy and around him, a halo marred only by the streak of darkness over his heart. Stakar sees John then at all times: here he is lying in the summer grass with a young woman, listening to music through a mysterious machine; here he is fighting a child much larger than himself in the name of adolescent justice; here he is running from his mother’s lifeless body, his every thought and emotion completely overwhelmed by grief and guilt; here he is taken by the stars, surrounded by unfamiliar sights and sounds, so terrified he just might die; here he is learning how to fly and shoot and steal as he tries in his own secret way to make his Captain proud; here he is in the darkness of the vents, tired and afraid, torn from the closest thing he’s had to a family in such a long, _long_ time…

Here he is now, brighter than gamma rays or quasars or exploding stars, exhausted but thriving, fear and excitement singing in his veins. Courage shines in his eyes—not in the absence of fear, but in spite of it, wholly aware of the danger he’s in, but unwilling to succumb to these newfound terrors.

Stakar doesn’t quite know what John is. Nor does he know what will become of the boy. Stakar cannot see him beyond this moment, as though this Light has blinded him.

A sense of foreboding pierces through the haze of his bloodlust. He’s can’t explain why.

He wonders if it’s because of the boy’s fear, the blackness festering in his heart. Stakar touches John’s face, fingertips warmed by the boy’s ethereal glow, willing him to be at peace. Their respective lights are not at all alike, but John recognizes him and relaxes, the fear bleeding away. The black streak wavers. The boy shines brighter.

Time catches up to Stakar again suddenly as Aleta draws his attention to the creatures in the hanger. He can barely see the larger of the two. It’s like staring directly into a black hole, sucking everything in.

He pushes the doors open and glides inside. The smaller of the two creatures lunges at him from above, mandibles snapping. Stakar raises a hand and blasts it away, turning its twisted form to ash like all its brethren, black flecks drifting weightlessly through the air as he turns his attention to the other. He unleashes the light on it.

The light diminishes. It vanishes into the imaginary void as the creature curls in on itself, somehow older and stronger than the others. It almost enjoys the sensation. It is a Sköll of the universe, its sole purpose to consume all. Stakar especially. And perhaps, too, the boy, its head craning curiously toward the doors to the corridor. Stakar’s men have shut it again, but he knows that once this creature is through with him, there will be nothing to stop it from beginning its hunt anew. It will feast on every living thing until it swells to the size of the ship and perishes in space.

Knowing that his light won’t faze it, Stakar aims at the M-ship upon which the creature has perched itself and blasts that instead. The explosion rocks the hanger, blowing him back several feet. The creature squeals in indignation, thrown against the hanger doors, metal shrapnel imbedded in the scaly under-armor over its belly. But it doesn’t bleed. It isn’t even burnt.

Stunned, Stakar barely moves in time to avoid the stinger the creatures lets loose his way. He is completely side-blinded by the second. It pierces through his own armor, digging into his pectoral muscle in the tender twist between his left shoulder and his arm. He yanks it out and dodges the third, alarmed by the sudden numbness in his chest.

Poison.

Stakar’s learned by now that he’s impervious to most things, but the loss of sensation is still unnerving. He tries to roll his shoulder, but his arm hardly moves. His fingers spasm, and then nothing. Who knows how long its going to be out of commission.

Satisfied with its own attack, the creature arches back and scrambles against the far wall, searching for anything to hook its spindly legs on. It eventually catches hold of the ledge above the hanger door, tittering softly as it contemplates its next attack.

Stakar already knows what he has to do. The only way of killing this thing is to space it, but it’s not as though he can blast the hanger doors wide open. They’ve have been designed to sustain the absolute worst, lest Stakar lose half his crew to the cold vacuum of space.

He’ll have to open one with the main control panel in the security room.

He cranes his head back to look at the room in question.

And comes eye to eye with another creature.

Stakar didn’t think it was possible, but this one is at least twice the size of its companion. It’s five stories up, curled around another M-ship, large enough that Stakar can clearly see the beady eyes above its mandibles. They’re rimmed with long lashes. Black as coal. The creature is foaming at the mouth.

It’s also right above the security room.

In the back of his mind, Aleta curses.

~*~*~*~

He’s gonna die.

As the small explosion rocks the ship, Peter glances out the window at the creature and sees the pitiful amount of damage dealt to it. It looks angry, but relatively unscathed, twisting its body to take aim at Stakar with its stinger.

Peter pushes away from the doors. He’s suddenly scared again, both for himself and for Stakar. He realizes he doesn’t want the man to perish.

“What’s the sequence for opening the hanger doors?” he asks.

Everyone cranes their heads to look at him. Thankfully, nobody tries to talk him out of his current plan of action. It has finally occurred to them that they can’t be picky when it comes to dealing with these hateful creatures.

The only way to get rid of these monsters is to space them.

And the only one capable of doing that is Peter.

Cam pushes himself off the nearest wall and extends his hand to Peter. “You still got that scrap? I’m all out.”

Digging into his pocket, Peter pulls out the crumpled paper and hands it over. There isn’t much room left, but Cam is able to squeeze the sequence under his previous instructions. “Once the air’s been sucked out of the hanger, the Generator will automatically turn itself back on to equilibrate the room,” Cam says as he returns the slip. “You’ll have maybe a minute before gravity kicks in again. Stick close to the ground and brace yourself.”

“Here,” Kraglin says, shoving his blaster Peter’s way. He looks tense. Tenser than Peter’s ever seen him before. “In case any of those things are up there. Remember, you can only get them from below.”

Peter never wants to situate himself anywhere near a stinger, but he knows he won’t have much of a choice if it comes down to a fight. He only hopes that he finds the security room to be as secure as its name suggests.

He tucks the note back into his pocket and grabs the blaster. In the corner of his eye he can see someone prying open one of the wall grates.

“Just head straight up,” Cam says. “No turns necessary.”

“Be careful,” Martinex says softly, squeezing his shoulder.

Peter nods, pushing off Kraglin to drift toward the open grate. Everyone watches him with baited breath until another small explosion wracks the ship. Inside the hanger, the creature titters angrily, loud enough for them to hear.

Peter grabs the rim of the grate and stares down into the darkness.

Out of the corner of his eye, something bright darts across the intersection at the far end of the corridor.

The hallway is still bathed in red light, so it’s hard to tell for certain, but Peter could’ve sworn that bright object was Yondu’s yaka arrow. He pauses just a moment to see if it’ll return, and, sure enough, it darts back the other way before disappearing altogether.

Peter can’t hear the man whistling, which means Yondu must be somewhere else in the ship, manipulating the arrow from afar. Peter’s heart sinks. Part of him is angry at the man for all this talk of stolen children, but part of him still wants to see his old captain again. He feels like he’s never going to get another chance to make things right by him, like maybe this chapter of Peter’s life is finally coming to a close.

Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Peter pulls himself into the vent and drifts into the darkness.

Just as he imagined, it’s much easier moving through the vent when he doesn’t have to scramble around on his hands and knees. It takes some effort to initially haul himself in one direction, but as soon as he gets going he just floats along, dragging his fingertips along the panels above him to feel for the first intersection.

Then he hears a soft titter up ahead.

Heart leaping up into his throat, Peter tries to press his hands against the panels on either side of him slow himself down, but the effect is minimal. Contrary to what he used to believe as a child, moving in zero gravity is a tricky business. The simplest analogy he can think of to explain it are those crazy carts at the supermarket that spin on all four wheels. No matter how hard you try to pivot them to turn a corner, if you’re moving too fast, you just keep on sailing forward.

Peter’s faced with a similar dilemma now. He can’t see the creature, but he knows it’s dead ahead, and it takes a moment for him to ditch his old reflexes and just relax. He raises Kraglin’s blaster in front of him and mutters a quick Hail Mary before squeezing the trigger.

The shot he fires off serves two purposes. First, it slows him down a little. Second, it lights up the way ahead of him as the burst of energy barrels down the vent, straight into the face of the unsuspecting creature. Peter figures the shot must’ve caught the thing in the throat, because it’s head explodes upon impact, body convulsing before darkness descends upon him once again.

Thankfully, Peter catches a glimpse of the intersection between them and raises his hand once more to catch the corner of the vertical vent as he passes, yanking himself to a halt. He reorients himself so that he’s facing upward.

And then something catches on his boot.

Directly below him, one of the creatures had been lying in wait. It snaps its mandibles shut on either side of Peter’s right foot, but the hard rubber sole of his boot prevents it from crushing the appendage completely. It twists its head viciously from side to side, jostling Peter’s leg like a rag doll. His knee pops painful as its wrenched in an unusual direction. The pain lances all the way up to his hip.

Even though he’s not confident he won’t injure himself further, Peter aims his blaster between his legs in a blind panic and squeezes off a shot. By the grace of whatever supreme being exists in the universe, Peter doesn’t blow off either of his feet. The creature still gets a face-full though, its head exploding in a similar fashion to its brethren. At this size, it must be more susceptible to physical damage, regardless of which end it’s attacked from.

Realizing he should proceed with a little more caution, Peter raises the blaster above his head and fires off another shot to clear the way of any other nasty surprises lying in wait. Thankfully, nothing is up there. Just a long, dark corridor that stretches the length of the next six or seven stories.

Bracing his good leg against the husk of the creature, Peter vaults onward, keeping the blaster raised in front of him in case something else decides to pop out on him. He tries to ignore the way his body trembles as he continues his journey through the darkness.

Fortunately, he sees the gentle red glow of the security room before too long. Unfortunately, he also hears more tittering, this time from within the room itself. A glance through the grate shows two creatures, both marginally large, angrily twisting in the air. Peter could possibly drift right on by them, but the control panel is to the left and he’s not sure he can get there without bumping into the nearest creature. He’ll have to kill it— _both_ of them, actually, if he wants to be 100% certain of his safety.

Releasing the blaster, letting it float in front of his face, he reaches for his dagger and begins prying at the grate. Its slow work with the way his hands are shaking. He didn’t want to think about it before, but there’s no point in ignoring how terrified he is. His encounter with the creatures in the vents has shaken him up, and the prospect of fighting even more of them gives him the chills. He wishes Kraglin was with him. Or Martinex. Or anyone, really, just so he wouldn’t have to do this alone.

In fact, for the first time in a very long time, he simply wishes someone would take the reigns from him. He’s fought hard for his independence since Yondu picked him up from Earth, but he misses being able to relinquish his control to a responsible adult. He thinks he understands now why Stakar pushed for him to quit his antics. He seemed to know that Peter would reach a threshold, that there would come a time when Peter would be tempted to just curl into a ball and quit.

And he almost does.

The creature nearest to the vent redoubles its efforts and titters louder, squirming harder. Before too long, it’s able to orient itself perfectly to fire a stinger off toward the vent, although it thankfully doesn’t pierce all the way through the grate. The tip of the stinger stops a couple of inches shy of Peter’s face, knocking his blaster off to one side.

Peter grabs it before it can go to far. He doesn’t want to be here anymore. He doesn’t want to do this.

But he has to.

Hands still trembling, he resumes his attempts to pry the grate off the wall. His eyes water as he works, but he doesn’t stop. Living with Ravagers has helped him kick the habit of freezing up when he’s in danger. After all, you can’t survive if you don’t keep yourself on the move, and he wholly intends to survive this massacre, come hell or high water.

Eventually, the grate pops off. The creature titters gleefully, unaware of the danger it’s in as Peter grabs his blaster and takes aim at its exposed belly. He lets off more than one shot, watching with no small amount of satisfaction as its blood and guts ooze out into the air, black like tar under the red light.

The other creature scrambles madly when it catches sight of Peter pulling himself into the room. Peter shoots it in the back, but it’s big enough that its dorsal side is impervious to damage. The blast does, however, have the effect of bouncing the creature off the far wall. Peter watches as it slowly somersaults through the air, hand shaking as he takes aim again. His first shot misses, but the second catches it in the abdomen. It thrashes wildly as it dies.

Peter takes a deep, stuttering breath as he pushes off the wall, sailing toward the control panel. Through the large, ballistic windows he can see Stakar soaring through the hanger, firing off shots at some unseen creature high above. Closer to the ground, the larger creature looks as though it is trying to pry the shrapnel out of its abdomen, but its legs aren’t the strongest part of its body and it clearly isn’t able to leverage anything out.

Peter takes yet another breath, this one steadier than before, and tucks his dagger into his boot. He releases his blaster as he fishes out Cam’s instructions and then goes about typing in the command for the release sequence. A shrill alarm goes off above him when he does and a warning flashes across the screen, informing him that none of the temporary force fields can be erected around the M-ships and that anyone within the hanger is in imminent danger. Peter’s finger hovers above the ‘ _Finalize Command_ ’ button.

He doesn’t know if Stakar can survive in space.

At the moment, Stakar looks like some kind of ethereal being, shielded by light and shadow. Peter doesn’t know if he’s wearing an air mask under his peculiar armor or if he’s simply capable of surviving in a vacuum. He watches as the man jets back down to ground level, still trying to blast something up above, and then waves at Stakar in the hopes of getting his attention.

Those blinding eyes turn sharply in Peter’s direction. Unconsciously, Peter holds his breath as he points across the hanger at the doors, hoping his message is clear.

It’s hard to tell from this distance, but he imagines he sees Stakar nod.

He pushes the button.

All one hundred and fifty hanger doors on all levels snap open instantly. The M-ships themselves are chained into place, but anything that isn’t bolted down is immediately sucked out into space, including Stakar and the creatures. One of them slams heavily into an M-ship before it’s swallowed up into the void.

Peter’s chest swells at the sensation of divine justice finally playing out before his very eyes.

There’s a flash of light before the hanger doors slam shut again. Stakar barreled back inside before he could get locked out. An alarm rings overhead as oxygen from the ship’s reserves is pumped back into the room, trying to equilibrate the hanger in case there are any survivors.

Peter watches in fascination as the being of light and shadow flashes brightly again before splitting with an explosive force straight down the centre. He tries to blink away the dark spots that suddenly dance across in his vision, squinting at the two forms now floating in the hanger. Much to his surprise, he sees both Stakar and Aleta slowly drifting apart, wearing oxygen masks and their regular jump suits. The golden bands on their shoulders glow briefly before dimming completely.

Aleta crosses her hands behind her head in a relaxed pose as she slowly somersaults away, seemingly pleased with the outcome of their battle. Stakar, on the other hand, uses his jet boots to stabilize himself, running a hand through his greying hair as he stares at the nearest hanger door, as though he still can’t quite wrap his head around what he’s been through today.

The alarm blares again in warning. Very soon, the Generator is going to kick back into action.

Peter smiles briefly.

Then he sees it.

Reflected in the window, he notices a long body and spindly legs waving in the air beside the open vent, just beyond his peripheral vision. He braces himself against the control panel and grabs his blaster, twisting around to defend himself. The creature’s head is reared back, legs extended to draw Peter into its deadly embrace.

Peter pulls the trigger.

The creature squeals in agony as it rockets across the room, convulsing. Peter sobs openly in fear and relief, eyeing the dark trail of ooze the creature leaves in its wake as it drifts away. He laughs once, just to release the stress bubbling up inside him. Then he sobs again, giving himself such an awful cramp as he finally reaches his tipping point. He is _never_ going to rob another tomb in all his life, so help him god. He doesn’t care how hard Yondu smacks him upside the head for his insubordination. It’s just not worth it.

The cramp suddenly comes again, an intense throb of pressure deep inside his gut, the likes of which he’s never felt before.

Peter glances down.

There’s a stinger in his stomach, wedged right under his lowest left rib, off centre by about an inch. It missed his spine going in, but there’s an awful lot of blood. It drifts from the wound with the careless mien of snow on a cold, wintry day.

He releases the blaster on impulse and grabs the back of the stinger with both hands in a panicked attempt to pull it out, shaking so hard he can barely curl his fingers around it. Moving is a chore, even more so when the poison on the stinger numbs his hands. Somehow though he can still feel the thing inside him. The pressure is immense. It comes in sharp and unpredictable waves. He feels as though someone is hitting him repeatedly with a hammer, each blow rattling him to the core.

He thinks he might still be crying.

When the main lights snap back on, he blinks in surprise at all the large cloud of blood, wondering how much a boy his size can lose before his brain and body call it quits. It’s such a brilliant shade of red.

It looks so surreal.

He’s not ready to die.

Peter sobs again.

The pressure increases.

 

He’s not ready.

 

 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Poor boy. You just can't win in life, Peter Quill. You just can't win...


	9. Redemption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Words cannot describe how sorry I am for the delay in updating. Between the many different life-events that cropped up between now and the last chapter, I just didn't get much time alone to work on this story. Thank you so much for being such incredible readers.

Their separation is surprisingly painless.

In fact, Stakar can still feel Aleta’s warmth in her absence instead of the usual chill that seizes him, a pleasant afterglow of the fire that sustained them those scant few moments they spent floating in space. It’s fueled by her love and her passion, both for him and for the Fight. She’d been born a warrior and took great pleasure in vanquishing her enemies. Even after a battle as brief as this, he can read the giddiness in the laxness of her long, lean body, hands folded casually behind her head as she slowly drifts away, sinking into utter bliss as she rides the high of victory.

Stakar enjoys a good victory himself, but his mind is still tangled in the oily sensation of communicating with those creatures on such a basal level. All he could read from them was anger. Anger and fear. Stakar could feel the life bleeding from them as he dove back into the ship, the all-consuming cold freezing the very liquid in their glossy black eyes. The sharp peak of their agony was, he will admit, absolutely divine.

It felt good to turn the tables on them.

When he’d re-entered the ship, something other than Aleta’s lingering warmth occurred to him. More of a tickle at the back of his mind, but a noticeable signal all itself. Fear again, but the pure kind, tinged with the cold confidence one possesses when valiantly carrying on in the face of danger. Not surprisingly, zoning in on that signal drew his attention back to the kid, still holding the fort in the security booth, his light shining even brighter than before.

That naïve courage is still fresh in Stakar’s mind after returning to his normal form, like the pleasant aftertaste of a fine wine. He savors it for a moment, even as he takes in the damage around him, wondering at how long it’ll take them to repair the ship. And collect the bodies. He doesn’t want to think about how many of his men and women would be dead right now if he hadn’t decided they deserved a little downtime on Contraxia.

Thinking about Contraxia gets him into thinking about the whole reason he came here today, which really all boils down to Yondu. As much as the guy pisses him off on a regular basis, he only feels a deep and bitter grief at the thought of him now, of the confusing story behind John and his prolonged stay with Udonta’s Ravager crew.

He’s going to have to have a _very_ long conversation with the man once Yondu’s yaka arrow is safely stowed away in its holster.

Fogging up his oxygen mask with a heavy sigh, Stakar allows himself to drift in a lazy circle until he’s facing the security station, pumping the jets on his boots to stabilize himself. An alarm blares overhead, warning them of the imminent return of gravity. Very soon, the main hanger will finish equilibrating and he’ll be able to survey the damage dealt to the rest of his ship. He’ll need to…

Stakar blinks, tilting his head curiously to one side. John is still floating inside the security booth, turned to one side, staring into a growing black mist under the glare of the emergency lights. Some primal part of Stakar’s brain is screaming at him, but he doesn’t know why. Then the regular lights power on, bathing the security room in its usual creamy glow.

The mist turns a brilliant shade of red.

Stakar’s heart stops. “No,” he breathes.

_“Stakar?”_ Aleta asks over the radio.

“ _No_ ,” he says again, feeling lightheaded as he rockets toward the security booth. He reaches out for the door handle—and is tackled to one side bodily by his ex-wife. “ _Aleta_!” he shrieks, trying to twist his way out of her hold, almost elbowing her in the face in the process.

She pounds him once— _hard_ —in the kidney for his efforts. _“The hanger hasn’t equilibrated yet!”_ she snaps. _“You’ll kill him!”_

_‘He’s already dead,’_ Stakar thinks miserably as he continues to wriggle out of her hold. A little less forcibly this time, because her message has gotten across to him and he just needs the space. Keening in to his bitter acceptance, she releases him.

Free now, he drifts back to the door, hand at the ready over the handle, staring through the glass window at the boy. John’s eyes are closed now, pale-faced and unmoving, one hand loosely cupping the large stinger wedged under his ribs.

Here lies another victim of Stakar’s folly, suspended in the moment of his death.

Stakar can feel his stomach curling in on itself with fear and self-loathing. He wants to cut this feeling out and lay it at the feet of the Hawk God, to beg for the cessation of all emotion. He would carve his very heart out if he knew it would do him any good.

Finally, the overhead alarm gives one last bleating cry before gravity kicks in. Stakar’s insides twist as he watches John fall gracelessly to the floor. Hitting the deck himself sends quite the jolt through Stakar’s knees, but he somehow doesn’t collapse under the weight of his grief as he yanks the door open and dashes inside.

“ _No_ ,” he moans, dropping to floor beside the boy. He gathers John up into his arms, cradling his limp body against his chest. He presses a hand against the wound, trying to ignore all the _red_. “Please, wake up. For the love of _god_ , please, wake up. _Please_ …”

His mantra dwindles away into a sob, tears hot against his face. He sees his own little boy through his blurred vision, long-dead now but still fresh in memory. Stakar’s failed all over again.

He doesn’t know how he’s going to come back from this.

Vaguely, he can hear Aleta talking to someone urgently behind him. Over her radio, he thinks. His suspicions are confirmed when he sees the circle of sparks dancing around him on the floor, the hallmark of one of Krugarr’s portals.

Suddenly, Aleta is beside him, prying his arms off the boy.

“No!” he barks at her.

She slaps him. _Hard_.

Then again.

“You’re not helping,” she bites back, face stern but eyes watering. “He’s still bleeding out. Krugarr is transporting the injured to a hospital on the ground. He doesn’t need you in the way to fuck this up.”

Her stony resolve snaps him to attention better than any slap. He weakly lays John out on the ground and takes a step back. Once he’s outside the portal’s circumference, the floor vanishes beneath the boy, dropping him five feet onto a white stretcher. Already, a nurse and a doctor are busying themselves with him, barking orders to somebody else nearby.

Stakar’s about to jump down through the portal himself when it snaps shut again.

Anger lances up through every bone in his body.

“Calm down,” Aleta says, voice wobbling. “Don’t let the anguish take you.”

Stakar looks over at her and suddenly this wicked heart of his lurches with a different kind of grief, the kind he struggles with whenever he sees her in pain. It would be all too easy to fuse with her again and raze the galaxy to the proverbial ground, but he has to fight the urge, just like she is now.

He can’t let the anguish take him.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I can’t…I can’t believe…”

She walks over to him and wraps her arms around his neck.

He leans into her embrace, looping his own arms around her waist. Her hair, amazingly, still smells a little like gunpowder and lilacs, her unique aroma. He breathes her in and feels her shudder against him. They tighten their hold on one another.

And then they cry in earnest.

~*~*~*~

All around him is death.

Yondu hasn’t seen so many bodies stacked one atop another since he was a battle slave. He’s killed loads of people in his days as a Ravager, of course, but there’s just something a little unsettling about sorting the dead into their respective groups after a battle of this magnitude, allies on one side and enemies on the other. Such an unnecessary waste.

Once the dust settled, someone made the decision to collect the corpses in the main hanger. The carcasses of the creatures would be hurtled plain as day into space, but their fallen comrades needed to be incinerated the traditional way. But not before the other Ravager fractions could be called to Contraxia to celebrate their passing. Yondu doesn’t want to stick around for that—not that he has any illusions he’ll be invited to the ceremony. He just wants to grab the kid and split before someone gets it in their head to shoot him.

He and Kraglin are in the midst of lying one body down on a white sheet, just about finished with their solemn duty, when Martinex approaches him. Old stony face doesn’t show much emotion, as per flarking usual, but his voice is noticeably softer as he says, “Krugarr is offering to take you to Peter.”

“About damn time,” Yondu mutters. After the fighting ended, he was fucking displeased to discover that the boy was no longer on the ship. He’d been informed earlier by some medic that after Krugarr was through sucking the last few creatures into the nth dimension he started transporting people down to Contraxia for medical attention. Yondu assumes Krugarr took the kid along for the ride just to keep him away from the carnage. Or maybe Peter had another meltdown. The kid still tends to flake out from time to time.

Martinex lifts a communicator to his mouth and mumbles something to their mutual friend. Immediately, a portal frizzles into existence beside the man, opening into the crowded hallway of a surprisingly pristine clean medical ward, the kind of place the richest folk on Contraxia probably frequent. Two badly bungled up blue-coat Ravagers are leaning against a wall as they talk over a third buckled down to a stretcher. They jump back from the portal in surprise, hands going for their blasters on reflex.

The barest hint of a whistle passes between Yondu’s lips, eyeing the men as he finally steps through the portal, Kraglin close behind. Remarkably, they take a wary step back from him instead of trying to light him up like the cosmos, giving him and his First plenty of room as Yondu makes his way briskly down the hall. He feels like reminding them that he’s one of the people that just saved their sorry asses, so now is _hardly_ the time he’d do an about-face and roast them, but he’s doesn’t have the energy to deal with Stakar’s clan today. They’ve been an uptight, miserable bunch of assholes for about as long as he can remember.

As he marches down the whitewashed hallway, he wonders where Krugarr stashed the boy. He wonders where Krugarr is too, but the Lem could be in any one of a million different dimensions right now. Yondu caught glimpses of him during the battle, flying out through one portal, nabbing a creature, and then disappearing quickly into another. Yondu was tempted to ask him what flaming hellhole he’d dropped them into, but Krugarr wasn’t all that unkind. He probably chose an uninhabited moon and ditched them there to fight amongst themselves to the point of extinction. Hopefully soon-ish. Yondu doesn’t want to bump into them on one of his future adventures.

Miffed as he is about being dragged off somewhere and forgotten himself, he still feels as though something is amiss. Krugarr used to make himself scarce whenever he knew Yondu and Stakar were going to have another one of their arguments, the real rotten kind that used to end with bloody fists and swollen eye-sockets. Yondu’s still pretty eager to tear another strip out of his old captain, but he’s already too tired and mellowed out from battle to go to town on anyone else today. He just wants to make sure the kid is in one piece and then maybe he’ll pull Aleta aside for a more serious chat if she’s still around. She was always the group diplomat anyway.

And speak of the devil, here she is now, just on the other side of the double doors at the end of the hall. She’s alone standing in yet another pristine hallway, not so much as a scratch on her, but her red-shot eyes kill the terse greeting perched on the tip of his tongue. She isn’t crying, per se, but she obviously _had_ been not too long ago.

Yondu’s only seen her cry once before, and the whole messy affair was enough to bring even him to tears.

“You okay, ma’am?” Kraglin asks quietly, like he hadn’t been trying to stab her only a few hours ago.

Aleta glances between the two of them before dropping her gaze to her boots. Yondu’s first thought is that Stakar bit the dust somehow during the fight, but Aleta is the sort of woman who’d celebrate his life immediately in the face of his death and yet Yondu doesn’t smell a hint of booze on her.

These tears were squeezed out of her by a crueller hand of fate.

“The kid’s in Bay 3,” she croaks. “The doctors say if they walk out of there before the next hour, it didn’t end well.”

“What didn’t end well?” he asks dumbly, his mind slow piecing together her little puzzle.

“The surgery.”

“Peter?” Kraglin asks, face screwed up with an ugly kind of confusion, the same kind of confusion Yondu can feel twisting up his guts. Peter’s had a few scraps in his time as a child on a Ravager ship, but somebody was always close at hand to pull him out of the fire. Peter was in greater danger of death by malnourishment most of the time, to be honest. The thought of something getting to him far outside Yondu’s sphere of observation just didn’t seem possible.

“What?” Yondu breathes. But he’s not really asking, and Aleta, naturally, knows he doesn’t need an answer. This question of his is more for the universe in general, a plea for an explanation of why he sacrificed virtually _everything_ to save this child from death’s greedy clutches only to fail spectacularly in a few short years.

“Peter,” Aleta echoes quietly, losing herself to thought. “That’s a beautiful name…”

Her uncharacteristic stupor is freaking him the hell out, heart racing now as he resumes his march down the hallway, picking up speed. Kraglin jogs after him as he bursts through the doors at the other end of the hall and hangs left. Medical personnel dart out of the way as he searches out Bay 3.

There are blue-coats standing guard outside the room in question, holding back an angry young man who looks like a medical student, one that was probably just given the boot from the viewing room to the surgery. Oddly enough, Stakar’s men must have orders to let Yondu pass because they don’t so much as glance in his direction as he stomps between them and barges through the door.

He finds Stakar on the other side, standing before a large glass window that stretches the entire length of the far wall, staring out into the surgery. Stakar’s legs are planted shoulder-width apart, his hands folded neatly behind his back like a goddamn soldier. He doesn’t move so much as a muscle as Yondu and Kraglin make their entrance.

Anger is the first emotion that takes a lick at Yondu, seasoned with a healthy dose of contempt, but then his eyes fall on the terrible scene unfolding on the other side of the glass window and the fight just goes from him.

Peter is lying flat on an operation table under a blinding light, covered with nothing more than a starchy white sheet. He’s hooked up to every manner of monitor, the lower half of his face hidden beneath an oxygen mask. The boy’s skin is deathly pale. The luster has faded from his golden waves, now lying limp around his small face. Doctors and nurses and robots hover around his waist, obscuring the extent of the damage from view.

On a small metal tray beside the table lies a long black stinger caked in blood.

Belligerent as Yondu usually is, he’s suddenly lost for words.

“How’d it happen?” Kraglin asks, clearly just as stunned by the unexpected demise of their youngest clan member.

“He opened the hanger doors for us,” Stakar replies, voice faint. “He…saved a lot of lives.”

_‘That’s not the point!’_ Yondu screams inside his head. He slams his fist into the window. Thankfully, it barely vibrates in response, not enough to break the steady rhythm of the doctors as they sew the innards of his ward back together again.

“He’s a clan member,” Stakar continues, unperturbed by Yondu’s outburst, as per usual. “If he dies, he’ll get all the usual rites.”

Yondu feels like he should lash out at the man for taking such a defeatist stance on this situation, but a small part of him—the part that eagerly welcomed Stakar’s religion of a greater Being and an even greater _Beyond_ when he was freed from the Kree—is both stunned and relieved that Peter won’t be denied his dignity in death, that there will be nothing baring him from the golden fields and sacred forests where his mother roams.

Another part of him—the much larger part—rebels against the idea that this is the end; rebels against Stakar’s cold attitude, the heartless bastard, but that part of Yondu is silenced when he turns to get a good look at the other man.

Stakar’s eyes are closed and his head is bowed forward, as though he was meditating before Yondu arrived. He was probably praying to his god. Or screamed at it inside his head. Yondu could never tell what kind of discussions Stakar had with his deity. All he knows is that the man looks a million years old right now standing in the cool blue darkness of the viewing room.

“If you’ve gotta scream and shout, do it,” Stakar says suddenly, unmoving. “I ain’t judging.”

“But ain’t that what you’re good at?” Yondu hisses. “ _Judging_?”

Slowly, Stakar opens his eyes. He turns his head to look at Yondu, but doesn’t say a word.

He’s waiting for Yondu to take a swing at him, almost as though he might actually think he deserves it. But isn’t that a laugh. With that ‘Hawk God’ perpetually mumbling at the back of his brain, drowning out all sound of logic, Stakar could never seem to grasp the idea that he could be in the _wrong_ for once in his goddamn life. He’ll be back to his narcissistic self in no time. Yondu would bet the _Eclector_ on it.

Yondu grabs one of Stakar’s golden shoulder arches and yanks him around. There’s a lot of rage bubbling up inside him, but he doesn’t know how to let it out yet. He wants to scream; he wants to punch Stakar in his wizened old face—but then he sees the blood on Stakar’s suit and just under his chin—the _red_ blood— and he falters.

Yondu rocks back on his heels and takes a shaky step away from the man. There are a couple of chairs up against the wall to the left, so he turns toward them and collapses into one. Kraglin remains beside the window, staring into the operation room in something of a daze.

Yondu hates Stakar more than words could possibly describe, but he doesn’t have the energy for that kind hate right now—doesn’t have the _room_ for it inside him, not with all that grief and regret swelling up inside him. He should spend this time reflecting on Peter. The poor kid isn’t long for this world and the boy deserves a moment of consideration.

Stakar closes his eyes and turns away from him again. Yondu bows his head. He thinks about the children—all of them, the sad and the loud and the funny ones, who’d all seemed so enthused in their own way at the prospect of meeting their biological father. He also thinks about when the pieces started to fall into the place, when he realized something was amiss. He’d never been so sick of himself in all his life, staring at the coordinates for the next child and wondering if Peter Quill of planet Earth was going to go the way of his siblings or if he’d live to see adulthood. But Ego said he had someone else in the neighborhood who could grab the kid if Yondu was busy, so whether or not Yondu accepted the job Quill was on his way out.

That’s why he took Peter and ran.

Fuck Stakar and his rules.

But fuck him too, he supposes, because he didn’t anticipate growing to care for another living being, least of all one that was so dependent on him for survival. As a child, Yondu survived on his wits alone. Nobody cared whether he lived or died, only that he could make himself useful in the battlefield while he was still breathing. He can’t remember the number of times he’d wanted to smack some sense into Peter, to tell him to stop whining and grow up already. But then he remembered how he himself had longed for a little sympathy, and that stayed his hand. He was going to make sure Peter grew up to become a stronger man than him. Wiser too, if it could be helped, given how stubborn the brat could be. It would be the biggest f-you to Stakar and the Kree and _Ego_ , who played only by their own rules and didn’t much like anyone with a will of their own. If the universe was truly kind, Peter would grow up and sink his freakishly straight teeth into one of them someday.

But the universe is not kind and Yondu was a fooling for ever thinking otherwise.

His throat feels tight suddenly and his eyes burn, like he might just _cry_. It’s such a repulsive biological reaction, but he doesn’t quite care. He’ll cry it all out and maybe that’ll make some room in his heart for hatred again.

“I get it now,” Stakar says apropos of nothing.

Yondu lifts his head, just enough to see Stakar’s boots and bloody trousers through the haze of his tears.

“I get that you didn’t know,” Stakar continues. He pauses to clear his throat, sounding a little tight in the vocal cords himself. “The kid really admires you.”

Seems like news to him, given all the stupid stunts Peter used to pull on the _Eclector_. Then again, he knows Peter had always given it his all whenever he was assigned a task, and that he liked to sit and talk to Yondu sometimes instead of listening to his infernal Walkman.

So, yeah…maybe it was easy to get attached the pipsqueak knowing that the kid had gotten attached to him in return.

Yondu lifts his head a little further, watching as Stakar rubs the bridge of his nose. The other man shakes his head. “I can’t believe you tried raising a goddamn kid on your own.”

“Hey,” Kraglin mutters, still watching through the window. “I helped.”

Stakar glances at Kraglin like he can hardly believe the bizarreness of this all. Then he slowly makes his way over to Yondu, taking up a seat two over from his former comrade. “Did you really think returning him home would’ve resulted in his recapture?”

Yondu doesn’t know if he has the energy to talk now, but it’s easier than punching or screaming, so he nods. “His old man said he knows when one of his kids is on a planet he’s visited. He’s got these… _seeds_. Said he planted them to watch over them.”

“So you kept the boy airborne? …What about now? Is his daddy gonna know he’s on Contraxia?”

Yondu shakes his head. “He can stay planet-side for a few cycles before the hunters come crawling out of the woodworks.” He glances through the window, but is barely able to keep his eyes focused on the faded figure under the sheet. It almost feels like sacrilege to observe such a normally animated child in such a terrifying position of repose. “Don’t know if his daddy is gonna make the effort now.”

“If he survives,” Stakar says quietly, “we’ll take him back up. He can rest aboard Aleta’s ship. Or Krugarr’s.”

“Or the _Eclector_ ,” Yondu grumbles.

“We’re gonna have a talk first before you go running off with the kid.”

“Ain’t no time like the present, you flarking megalomaniac.”

“Ain’t gonna _be_ no talk without the boy,” Stakar parries coldly. “He said he liked you so much better because he was an equal on your ship. I think if he makes it through this, he deserves the dignity of deciding his own fate, don’t you?”

Yondu blinks in surprise. Then he barks out a sharp laugh, one not entirely lacking in humor, because, _son of a gun_ …Peter probably raised hell when he was in Stakar’s company, although obviously in such a way that garnered him a smidgen of respect. No easy feat, that. But then, this was Peter all over. Many a crew member of the _Eclector_ wanted to throttle the boy or pat him on the back in equal measure. What Peter lacked in social graces, he more than made up in sheer talent, humor, and perseverance.

“The hell’s so funny?” Stakar grumbles.

“Let’s be real here—you don’t consider anyone your equal. He must’ve said or done something _real_ special to convince you to treat him like one.”

Stakar squints like Yondu’s on to something that he would much rather _not_ admit to. “He saved me and my people,” he finally mutters, but Yondu feels like that ain’t all of it.

“He also lip off to you?” Yondu presses, “because he’s pretty creative with the insults. I’ve buckled on more than one occasion just to shut him up.”

“His words have quite the bite,” Stakar concedes, “but…it’s his stony silence that does it for me.”

Yondu nods, all too familiar with Peter’s brand of the silent treatment. In some ways, it _is_ worse than the whining.

But, hell, he’ll happily listen to Peter whine until the end of the time if the kid makes it off that operating room with a heartbeat.

Both he and Stakar stare quietly at the boy from their seats for a short while. Kraglin doesn’t move much at all, completely lost in thought.

Eventually, Yondu says, “If he makes it out of this alive, promise me you won’t tell him about Ego.”

“Afraid he’ll search his daddy out?” Stakar asks, seeming to understand the logic behind Yondu’s request.

“Shit, yeah.” Brilliant as the boy was, Peter wasn’t too keen when it came to self-preservation. “The kid knows how to fly an M-ship. And shoot. He’ll hunt the asshole down if he feels like it.”

“What the hell,” Stakar mutters. “John’s too young to know any of that.”

“I didn’t say he’s any good at it.” Especially the shooting bit—the boy’s aim is a work in progress and he _still_ hasn’t cottoned on how to properly brace himself against the kickback.  “And it’s ‘Peter’. You really need to let go of this whole ‘John’ thing...”

“ _He_ told me his name was John. I ain’t confusing him with my boy.”

“You sure about that?”

Yondu’s expecting some kind of smart remark, but instead he’s met with silence. Maybe he crossed an important boundary here, but Stakar looks more pensive than pissed, like perhaps there’s a little truth in it.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Yondu says quickly. Stakar’s family affairs is a box of trouble he never wants to see the light of day again.

“Same,” Stakar mutters, “but we’ve got a lot to talk about otherwise.”

“You gonna listen this time?” he grumbles.

Stakar’s nod is an honest surprise. “Start to finish. But I’ve got plenty of questions and I know the others do too. We’ll call another meeting once…” he waves his hand toward the window, “...you know?”

Kraglin finally peels his eyes from the operation window to give Yondu a curious look. A meeting with the various Ravager factions sounds suspiciously as though Yondu might have a voice in the community again.

“I’m not promising anything,” Stakar clarifies. “It all boils down to how everyone votes, and you know that. But in the light of recent events…you might find more sympathy among your old friends than you did before.”

Yondu feels something suspiciously close to hope blossoming inside his chest. He kind of wants to stomp it out before it grows out of control, but he’s missed the feeling. He hasn’t had much to hope for in _years_.

There will be plenty of time to kill it off later.

“Much appreciated,” Yondu replies as he rises to his feet. Stiffly, he wanders back over to the window and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Kraglin. Together, they watch in silence as the doctors work their magic.

In the corner of his eye, he sees Stakar bow his head again in meditation, searching for an ever-elusive peace.

Despite everything that’s happened between them, Yondu hopes he finds it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sometimes, I wish Aleta was a real person in my life, just so she can slap some sense into me when I need it most.


End file.
